DESQview did not do any memory management of its own, and it did not use graphics. It was entirely local and had no networking. It was famously fast. It was a DOS multitasker so it managed DOS tasks, meaning multiple slots of 640kB. On a 386 with 4MB of RAM you could have 6 full-size DOS VMs with a bit left over.
If you were a power user you could still have say a big 1-2-3 spreadsheet in EMS plus a few DOS VMs.
DESQview delegated memory management to QEMM386, and QEMM386 did not do swapping. It didn't need to.
DESQview/X was a totally different product, with a full GUI, so much bigger and slower -- and it added an optional extension that added full virtual memory with swapping to disk.
I am wondering if you are mixing up DESQview (small, fast, local) with DV/x (big, complicated, networked, had optional VM)?
Or indeed DV/x with something else altogether? OS/2 maybe?
Because if it was swapping, it wasn't DESQview, not in any normal sane config anyway. It might be possible to add DV/x VM to plain old DESQview but I never heard of anyone doing that.
magazine page 97
https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1986-10/page/n108/...
Most of the modern terms these days have GPU acceleration too.
And with exception of command.com, most have had good CLI shells, without having to pretend being a teletype, like UNIX ones.
Amiga DOS with REXX was great, Oberon REPL, Smalltalk Transcript, Interlisp-D REPL, Xerox Star Mesa XDE,....
However, from my perspective, the extensive need to drag windows around and resize them is a habit of windows environment. So, perhaps, this is for the mouse what tmux and Neovim are for the keyboard.
In tmux, the window layouts I need are fixed sets of 2x2 panes, with some predefined ways of resizing them and toggling full-screen. With effective tools like telescope and nvim, the need to line all windows up disapears, because the switching is so efficient and I have more of a mental picture than a visual one of what's available. For example, no need for the file tree commonly to the left in most IDEs.
Setting up an efficient terminal environment is overwhelming. I do it as a hobby and enjoy the tinkering. Thanks to GPT the process is quicker. But I spent a lot of time just setting up a basic environment.
It can't just be pretty.
what use is a text-based desktop environment, if it requires a graphical interface and cannot run in a tty?
I already have a Linux machine, but yes this looks like a nice addition;)
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/7263/better-desktop-z...
Probably it would be possible to zoom one window at once as a shell extension.
ssh vtm@netxs.online
That domain is dead now
When I said "zooming" I was thinking of the white tethers attached to each window which would pull them back into a centre bundle. You can see what I mean here: https://changelog.com/news/a-textbased-desktop-environment-i... at the bottom left, the lines going off to a single point.
actually, by zooming out, I can still see the tethers on the windows. The ssh version was quite mind-blowing back when...
Still doesn't make a lot of sense, but I like it. :-D