★ APPLICATIONS ★ DIVERS ★ GOS: Graphic Operating System ★ |
| Gos - Graphic Operating System (The Amstrad User) | Applications Divers |
Move up to the pull-downs You are all familiar with the resident operating system within your CPC -AMSDOS. It's automatically there, along with Basic, when you first switch on your machine. Most, lam sure, are also familiar with CP/M. Like AMSDOS, it's another kind of operating system which looks after the "house-keeping" duties but extends into many other areas as well. The problem with both of these systems is thai they are not what one could call "user-friendly" when compared with those on other larger and more expensive machines (for example GEM on the PC1512, and doesn't a Macintosh make you drool!); Well, drool no more. An all Australian product has just been released for the CPC range of machines which almost puts them in the big league. The Package The Graphic Operating System (or GOS for short) provides the now popular windows, icons and pull-down menus environment (WIMP) with the just the pull on a joystick or sweep of a mouse. No more worrying about the format of a particular command - just point the arrow and click. This is what being "user-friencly" isall about. The package comes on one disc, the system disc, which also contains a couple of applications. More about those later. All you need to supply is a 464 with disc drive, a 664 or 6128, a joystick or an AMX mouse , and optionally a printer (Epson compatible). You'll not notice it, but once loaded the operating system pushes the Amstrad to its limits. What you will notice is how fast it runs - quite exceptional considering the amount of work it has to do. Naturally, the disc is protected. Even doing a CAT will fail to show the twenty or so files held on the disc. So, RUN"DISC and we area away. An introductory wall is displayed folio wed by the desktop itself. This is presented in two sections. The first, at the top of the screen holds four folders: EXIT, APPLICATIONS, OPTIONS and FILES. The lower section is the working area. EXIT Selecting this option produces a pulldown menu from which to selcct your exit point. Choosing 'Basic'will reset the machine. Choosing DDB' will take you into a Disc Database in which you can hold details on your library of discs. 'Label'is a sophisticated disc label printer (with icons) and 'Control'takes you into an enormous set of facilities. Some of these relate to file maintenance such as renaming or deleting files, others concern the environment in which you are working, such as pen and paper colours, whether you will be using a mouse or joystick and so on. There are also a number of conversion utilities including Decimal to Hex, Decimal to Binary and Character to ASCII. OPTIONS This holds the desktop utilities Calculator, Calendar, Clock and Screen dump. The calendar could be particularly useful as it also has an option to print the month you have chosen to display. Two small annoyances I found with the Calculator was that the "fire button' on the joystick had to be pressed quite quickly to avoid a 'speed-key' effect - you know, when a key depression can cause more than one character to be displayed. The other concerns finishing with the calculator (selecting "OFF"). This causes an execute/cancel window to appear with a 'Reload Software' question and the Y/N buttons. If you decide to recall the calculator, you would normally expect to select Y. But in doing so you merely go back to the options window. Maybe I'm splitting hairs. FILES This contains two desktop utilities - a Notepad and Phone List. You can clear, write to, read, print, load or save the Notepad. With the Phone list you can edit, display, enquire, print, save or load. APPLICATIONS Two applications arc provided with this GOS System disc, with more to come in the future. Selecting either of them takes you into a new screen. The first is a name and address database. This provides all the standard insert, delete, amend functions you would expect along with a powerful sort, search and display feature. All the time this is running you are advised of the free space available. The other application is a Mailing Label database. The options allow you to format the label, and run a test print before you start the actual printing. Again, the sort, search and display feature is provided. Of course, what vou must realise is that these applications are for small databases, in other words for about 100 records as far as l can workout. Summary There's no doubt about it - GOS is an extremely clever piece of programming which has used the many facilities of the Amstrad to its fullest. As future applications arc produced, they should butt neatly into the present system. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you can run any outside application under GOS - this cannot be done. But as a user-friendlv package, it already has a lot of facilities and utilities found separately in other packaged software.
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