Commenters debate whether the GeoWorks source code, written in x86 assembly, can be practically ported to modern hardware using AI or if such an effort is pointless compared to emulation. The discussion also contrasts the historical memory constraints that drove GeoWorks' efficiency with modern software bloat and the potential for LLMs to rewrite legacy systems.
22 readable replies · Supporting reply 1 · Supporting reply 2 · Supporting reply 3 · Supporting reply 4bluewaysw
pcgeos
Assembly2018–2026
bluewaysw / pcgeos
pcgeos
#FreeGEOS source codes. The offical home of the PC/GEOS operating system technology. For personal computing fans. For all developers and assembly lovers. For YOU!
7Distinct people
13Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
939GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
#FreeGEOS source codes. The offical home of the PC/GEOS operating system technology. For personal computing fans. For all developers and assembly lovers. For YOU!
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
My favorite DOS GUI was PC/GEOS / GeoWorks[1]. It was the GUI behind the interface on the original AOL CDs. It had a nice office suite that ran very well on even low end…
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year13 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-12-04 15:09:28 UTC to 2026-08-09 01:33:43 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
What Hacker News says
13 sourcesWIWillAdams·Aug 9, 2026
Well there was GeoWorks (which AOL used the GUI of to their advantage):
https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
In Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386FWIW, still around and now FOSS.
https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
In Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCsWhich is FOSS now!
https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
In Screenshots of Old Desktop OSesHave you thought about building a RISC-V “fantasy computer” core for the MiSTer FPGA platform?
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Wiki_MiSTer/wiki
From a software-complexity standpoint, something like 64 MiB of RAM possibly even 32 MiB for a single-tasking system seems sufficient.
Projects such as PC/GEOS show that a full GUI OS written largely in assembly can live comfortably within just a few MiB:
https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
At this point, re-targeting the stack to RISC-V is mostly an engineering effort rather than a research problem - small AI coding assistants could likely handle much of the porting work over a few months.
In LT6502: A 6502-based homebrew laptopPC GEOS is now Apache 2 FOSS.
https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
In GeoWorks: The Other Windows (2019)Maybe a good fit with the recent opensourcing of Geoworks Ensemble?
https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
In Psion: The Last ComputerBerkeley Geos was killed off by Microsoft making licensing it by PC vendors untenable.
For other folks who remember it fondly, it's been opensourced:
https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
In Fifty years of the personal computer operating systemPC GEOS: the multitasking DOS-based GUI OS that evolved from a C64 desktop
135 points · Open discussionNow FOSS:
https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
In QNX DEMO disk (1999)All of the PC/GEOS source code...
https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
In Ask HN: What's the best source code you've read?My favorite DOS GUI was PC/GEOS / GeoWorks[1]. It was the GUI behind the interface on the original AOL CDs. It had a nice office suite that ran very well on even low end hardware of the day.
I thought it was far superior to Windows at the time, and never understood why it wasn't more popular. It too has been open-sourced and is actively maintained[2].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(16-bit_operating_syste...
[2] https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
In OpenGEM: Non-multitasking 16-bit graphical user interface (GUI) for DOSApplications were also written in GEOS Object C (GOC), which was a C preprocessor that added object-oriented features to C (similar to Objective C or early C++).
Example: https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos/blob/master/Appl/GPCMail...
In GeoWorks: The Other “Windows”