The only good thing about Bob was the GeoSafari game. It was surprisingly entertaining.
RayRay On Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 2:20 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote: > >>> And rememember that windowing option in DOS, on a 8088? What was it > >>> called? > > On Wed, 19 Nov 2025, Christian Groessler via cctalk wrote: > > GEM > > "Graphics Environment Manager was from Digital Research, in 1985. Xerox > Ventura 2.0 bundled and used it! > Apple sued DRI, over the "look and feel" [and taste and smell] as being > too close a copy of Lisa and Mac OS. Replacing the greeting splash > screen "Hello" with "Hi" was not considered to be enough difference. > That encouraged Apple to sue lots nore people, including Microsoft > GEM 2.0 made "MAJOR" changes, such as replacing the trash-can icon. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEM_(desktop_environment) > > PCTools (from Central Point (CopyII)) did text mode windows. > BUT, to keep from disrupting the screen display with "Abort, Retry, > Ignore" messages, it took over the critical error handler, and set it for > IGNORE for all errors! That meant, that any hard error would result in > loss of data, without notification! > > and, cetainly NO discussion of alternatives could be complete without > remembering "BOB"! > Microsoft released it as a "more user friendly" interface, optionally > supplanting program manager on win 3.1, Win95, and even WinNT. They > releasede it on March 10 1995. > It was widely ridiculed, and quietly discontinued it in early 1996. > BUT, it gave rise to "Clippy", an annoying animated paper-clip "office > assistant" in Microsoft Office, and later "Rover", an animated "search > companion" in WinXP's file-search. > "#1 worst product of the decade" - CNET > #7 of "25 worst products of all time" - PCWorld > "Microsoft's Steve Ballmer mentioned Bob as an example in which "we > decided that we have not succeeded and let's stop [now]."[19]" > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob > > want more? or have I already bored y'all enough? > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred [email protected] >
