Re: early Apple II GUIs (was GEOS)

["Laine Houghton" <laine@intergate.com>]

"Martin Doherty" <martin.doherty@undisclosed.com> wrote in message 
news:p5OBf.27$Lf1.160@news.oracle.com...
> Mitchell Spector wrote:
>
>>[snip]
>>    There were far better GUI programs for the 8-bit Apple II: MouseDesk
>>(aka Apple II Desktop) was a nice rendition of the Finder, MultiScribe was 
>>like MacWrite, MousePaint like MacPaint (or if you wanted color,
>>there was 816/Paint or DazzleDraw), Publish-It! did page layout,
>>MouseCalc spreadsheet, ProTERM 3 telecommunications (it was
>>completely in Mousetext, but done excellently) just to name a few. And of 
>>course if you had an Apple IIGS, GEOS was of absolutely no value--even the 
>>earliest System Software and native applications blew it away.
>>
>>Mitchell Spector
>>
> I'm very interested in these early GUIs, but so far the only one I've laid 
> my hands on is MousePaint (that was an easy victory - it came on a floppy 
> with my mouse).  Is anyone aware of these little gems existing in any of 
> the archive sites?
>
> So ProTerm was a MouseText GUI?  I've always wondered how good a UI could 
> be built using those characters.  As a concept it seems a far more natural 
> and appropriate technique for a 1MHz 8-bitter versus bitmap graphics.
>
> One of my unrealized project ideas is a Pascal library of routines to 
> implement a MouseText UI.
>
> Martin

Run the Versibox Demo.
http://www.apple2.org.za/mirrors/ground.icaen.uiowa.edu/upl1998/Nov98/VERSIBOX.SHK

http://www.apple2.org.za/mirrors/ground.icaen.uiowa.edu/upl1998/Nov98/


("
What Is  VersiBox?
 VersiBox is a short (767 bytes) Applesoft BASIC programmer's utility
designed to make creating a text screen user interface simpler and faster.
It creates several different interface elements, including windows, buttons,
horizontal and vertical lines (like those found in the IIe version of
ShrinkIt,  A2FX, and others), and allows easier use of the MouseText and
inverse character sets.  VersiBox is designed to be used as a set of
ampersand (&) routines from Applesoft BASIC. The routines can also be
accessed from assembly or machine language with a copy of the source
code and a little programming skill.

 VersiBox runs on an enhanced Apple IIe with MouseText capability,
Apple IIc, Apple IIgs, or compatible computer.
")