Functional demo of the multitasking GOS in development for Atari 8-bit | Download
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Jonathan "flashjazzcat" Halliday offers us a working demo of the multi-tasking Graphical Operating System (GOS) he has been developing for the Atari 8-bit computers.
The compressed file contains ROMS and ATR files for a wide range of programmable cartridges; as well as separate versions for use with Atari ST and Commodore Amiga mice.
Halliday is currently working on the driver structure and increasing the speed of the system for displaying text. In the past few weeks he has also updated the control list so that the Profiler application will automatically reset its sleep counter based on the last user action, rather than redrawing the entire list each time the mouse button is activated, so the program runs more smoothly.
"At least the core of the UI is getting to the stage where it doesn't require any further rewrites or improvements. There's a threshold in text rendering speed that I felt needed to be reached, and I think we're finally there. The list redraw seen in the video isn't just rendering: the background is erased, numbers are converted to ASCII on the fly and aligned proportionally into columns, then everything is cropped and sent to the screen."
One of the users of the AtariAge forum decided to experiment with this operating system on a real Atari 130XE computer. He also used the file named "GOSMF8MB.rom", located in the "Amiga Mouse" directory. He then programmed the Maxflash Cartridge Studio software, so that his portable console could run an Atarimax 8Mb flash cartridge, as well as an Amiga mouse on port 2.
As for applications, the new system only has the "Profiler" or profile generator; you can select any of the three tabs, click on the column headers to reorder the lists, use the scroll bars, etc.
"Getting performance to an acceptable level was such a mammoth task that I didn't want to get bogged down in the details until it was clear that the thing could actually run at a reasonable speed," Halliday says.
Likewise, you can launch multiple instances of both demo applications and observe graphs of CPU as well as memory consumption per process in the analyzer.
It should be remembered that this multi-tasking graphical user interface (GUI) project began as a mouse demo project, based on a driver by John Maris. However, thanks to the support and ideas of various users of the AtariAge forum, Halliday decided to develop a simulated sprite display on high-resolution hardware.
Also involved in this effort is Paul "Mr. Fish" Fisher, who took full responsibility for the design and production of the font (creating a toolchain for converting BDF fonts for use in this GUI), and has designed hundreds of icons and dozens of other resources.
While it is expected that in the future this operating system will support non-expanded 64KB XL/XE series computers, the realistic hardware requirement will be an Atari XL/XE 8-bit computer with at least 128KB of memory, a flash cartridge (or Ultimate 1MB/Incognito), and an Atari ST or Amiga compatible mouse or trackball.
GOS/GUI for Atari 8-bit computers
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