Customizing GEOS

Building Your Environment

For this guide, I assume you are setting up GEOS 2.0 on the C64 Ultimate (C64U) using the disk images on "The Very Second" collection and no external peripherals aside from an optional joystick. You can use the C64U's keyboard joystick emulation if you don't have a compatible joystick.

Note: This guide focuses on GEOS itself. I won't be covering how to use the C64U's file browser or configuration settings—those details are in the C64U manual and there are plenty of online sources that can show you how they work.

In the previous section, I showed why you don't want to run GEOS on a Commodore 64 with only one 1541 disk drive. In this setup guide, I recommend a simple, flexible setup that will allow you to experiment with GEOS on your C64U. This setup is not necessarily the best setup (advanced users will want something fancier!) but I think we should start with the basics. It will be much easier to troubleshoot issues that arise if we avoid additional complications.

Configuring Your Drives

Here is the setup I recommend:

• 1581 as device 8: The 1581 has almost 5x the capacity of the 1541 on each disk, so you're less likely to run out of disk space. After you boot from the 1581, GEOS will see device 8 as Drive A.
• 1541 as device 9: The 1541 may be the slowest drive with the lowest disk capacity, but it still comes in handy. With a 1541 as Drive B, you'll be able to mount the GEOS disk images you find online in .d64 format.
• REU with 2Mb: Configure the REU as a virtual 1581 RAM drive as Drive C. You'll stash important components here and GEOS will use Direct Memory Access (DMA) to handle disk swaps, offering a considerable speed boost. Remember: anything saved to a RAM disk will disappear once you shut down. Always move your work to a physical disk before you end your session.

I'll cover the technical details of drive configuration in a later section.

Once you have the C64U configured, it's time to launch GEOS. Locate your copy of GEOS Boot Disk.d64 and mount it on drive B (device 9). Exit to BASIC, and type LOAD"*",9,1. Once deskTop has finished loading, you should see the screen in Figure 1, displaying two drive icons—resembling floppy disks—to the right of the note pad. Drive A (our 1581) shows a question mark, indicating that there is no disk in that drive; Drive B (the 1541, highlighted as the current drive) is labelled "GEOS Plain Boot". Your next step will be to configure the RAM expansion.

Locate CONFIGURE on page 1 of the disk note pad and double-click on its icon to launch the application. (It actually took me a couple of tries to get the double-click timing right with my joystick.) On the configuration screen, shown in Figure 2, you can see that GEOS has auto-detected Drives A and B as your 1581 and 1541. For Drive C, choose "RAM 1581" to give yourself a third virtual drive.

The RAM expansion input box shows "2048K", the maximum amount of memory that GEOS can see without additional modifications. Check the option for "DMA for MoveData" and leave the "RAM Reboot" option alone for now. In the file menu, choose "save configuration" and then "quit". When you return to the desktop, you will see "RAM 1581" as Drive C (Figure 3).

A New 1581 Boot Disk

The C64U's "plain boot" disk image is fine for getting started, but the limited capacity of the 1541 will force you to deal with frequent disk swaps. The 1581 takes care of the disk-swapping problem—you can fit the entire original GEOS 2.0 package on a single disk with room to spare. But here's where we run into a problem: you can't simply copy the C64U's boot disk to a 1581. TURBOBOOT is not 1581-compatible and will cause the C64U to lock up.

In 1988, you'd have two choices: live with the limitations of the 1541 boot disk, or connect with a user group or BBS to find someone who'd already figured things out. When I bought my REU from a guy in Toronto (we met at St. Patrick's subway station) he gave me a working 1581 boot disk as part of the deal. Even better, this disk included a fastloader that reduces the load time by roughly 30 seconds.

I've used that boot disk as a jumping-off point for a new .d81 that you can download and use with your C64U. I've included all of the applications, desk accessories, fonts, and input drivers that came with GEOS 2.0, and added two basic printer drivers to get you started. I've organized the files into logical groups to make the disk note pad easy to navigate:

• Page 1: Boot files, deskTop, default drivers.
• Page 2: System utilities; configuration tools.
• Page 3: Core applications (geoWrite, geoPaint, etc.)
• Page 4: Text Grabber import tool and templates.
• Page 5: Desk accessories; LaserWriter printer driver.
• Page 6: Standard fonts.
• Page 7: LaserWriter fonts; input drivers.

Restart your machine, mount GEOS Boot Disk.d81 on Drive A, and LOAD"*",8,1 to launch GEOS. After a moment, the screen will go blank, letting you know that the fast-load has kicked in. After a few seconds, you'll see (message that GEOS is stashing files in REU...technical details to follow...) * then we're on the desktop * plain grey (no colour prefs) * write about REU stashing and why it helps * go look at the files already on the REU/Drive C (and deal with the GEOS limitation of 2 active drives)