Digital Research's GEM opens a new window on Linux
- ID
- 23467
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 11 Sep 2026, 5:16 PM
- Fetched
- 11 Sep 2026, 6:13 PM
- Provider
- The Register
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/09/11/digital-researchs-gem-opens-a-new-window-on-linux/5295546
- Source URL
- https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
Summary
- Score
- 2.0
- Created
- 11 Sep 2026, 6:19 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developers
What happened
Slovenian developer Tomaž Štih has ported Digital Research's GEM—the 1980s GUI originally for Atari ST and MS-DOS PC compatibles—to Linux, deriving it from OpenGEM/FreeGEM source code released by Caldera in 1999. It runs via Linux framebuffer or an SDL2-based emulator called Rasta, and is described as secure, optimized, and source-compatible with Atari ST GEM.
Why it matters
This is a retro-computing curiosity with no practical impact on what builders ship today. It does not resolve the X11 vs Wayland question in any actionable way despite the headline's framing; it is a standalone desktop environment port that virtually no production system will adopt.
Discussion angle
Brief mention as a fun footnote: what old computing paradigms still have something to teach modern desktop architecture, but don't spend more than two minutes on it.