GEM (desktop environment) and Sami Yusuf: Difference between pages

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'''GEM''' (''Graphical Environment Manager'') was a [[window system]] created

{{Infobox Celebrity

by [[Digital Research]] for use with [[CP/M]] [[operating system]] on the

| name = Sami Yusuf

[[Intel 8088]] and [[Motorola 68000]] [[microprocessor]]s. Later versions ran over [[MS-DOS]] as well. It was a low-cost alternative to [[Microsoft Windows]] that was generally much more functional until Windows 3.0 was released, at which point GEM essentially disappeared.

| image =

| birth_date = July, [[1980]]

| birth_place = [[Tehran]], [[Iran]]

| death_date =

| death_place =

| occupation = [[Singer]], [[composer]],and [[lyricist]]

| salary =

| networth =

| website = http://www.samiyusuf.com (official site/fan club)

| footnotes =

}}

'''Sami Yusuf''' is a British singer-songwriter of [[Iranian Azeris|Azerbaijani]] origin [http://www.samiyusuf.com/biography/index.htm]& [http://www.samiyusuf.com/press/2005_09_30/2005_09_30_cuttings.htm] He was born in [[Tehran]], [[Iran]] to [[Azerbaijani]] parents[http://www.samiyusuf.com/press/2006_08_10/2006_08_10_timecnn.htm] in July 1980 and raised in the United Kingdom.

GEM is known primarily as the GUI for the [[Atari ST]] series of computers,

and somewhat less well known as the operating system for a series of PC-like

computers from Amstrad. It was also the core for a small number of [[MS-DOS]] programs, the most notable being [[Xerox Ventura|Ventura Publisher]].

His first album, [[Al-Mu'allim]], was released in July 2003 and attained huge success. His second album, [[My Ummah]], which was released in 2005, comes in two versions, a musical version and one with just percussion. Yusuf's music comprises mostly of songs to do with [[Islam]] and being a [[Muslim]] in today's world. He also deals with many social and humanitarian issues in his music. At present he is fast becoming a very popular figure in the Islamic world, and has made several videos of his songs.[http://www.samiyusuf.com/video/index.htm]

== History ==

Nevertheless, he has also sparked controversy due to the nature of his shows which critics claim have more in common with western pop concerts than Islamic spiritual values he claims to espouse.[http://www.muslimsweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1807&Itemid=238] However he has published a rebuttal to these claims on his website.[http://www.samiyusuf.com/messages/2006_06_17_yvonne.htm]

GEM started life at DRI as a more general purpose graphics library known

as '''GSX''' (''Graphics System eXtension''), written by a team led by

Lee Lorenzen who had recently left [[Xerox PARC]] (birthplace of the

[[GUI]]).

His international status has taken a clear enhancement on the second album with the participation of the trio of '''[[Outlandish]]''' on the track "Try Not to Cry".

GSX consisted of two parts: a selection of routines for common drawing

==Biography==

operations, and the device drivers that are responsible for handling the

Sami Yusuf was born in July 1980 in Iran. He was born into a musical family thus music played an integral part in his life. Sami’s initial training came from his grandfather, who is a musician. Sami is also a practising Muslim who sees songs as a means of promoting the message of Islam and encouraging the youth to be proud of their religion and identity.

actual output (the later was known as GDOS, a play on the earlier

driver-layer in in CP/M known as BDOS). GSX was intended to allow DRI to write graphics programs (charting, etc.) for any of the platforms CP/M would run on, a task that would otherwise require considerable effort to port due to the large differences in graphics hardware (and concepts) between the various systems of that era.

Sami learnt to play several instruments at a very young age and gradually began to show a keen interest in singing and composing. He studied under several composers who had graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London.

GSX evolved into one part of what would later be known as GEM. Originally to be known as '''Crystal''' as a play on an IBM project called '''Glass''', the name was changed to '''Gem'''. The use of the acronym evolved later.

Sami Yusuf has performed in [[UK]], [[United States]], Bosnia and Herzegovina, [[Canada]], [[Azerbaijan]],[[Pakistan]]{{Fact|date=July 2007}}, [[Saudi Arabia]], [[Sudan]] , [[Germany]] , [[Egypt]], [[Kuwait]], [[UAE]], [[France]], [[Sweden]], [[Holland]], [[Turkey]], [[Austria]], [[Syria]], [[Yemen]], [[Jordan]], [[Belgium]], [[Qatar]] and some other countries. He has released five music clips and the sixth is still not on television yet, but it was viewed in the Trafalgar square in [[London]].

GSX became the GEM VDI, responsible for basic graphics and drawing.

VDI also added the ability to work with multiple [[font]]s and added

a selection of [[Raster graphics|raster]] drawing commands to the formerly

[[vector]]-only drawing set. VDI also added multiple ''viewports'', a key addition for use with windows. A new module, GEM AES, provided the window management and UI elements, and GEM Desktop ran on both to provide a Mac-like GUI. The 8086 version of the entire system was first demoed at the November 1983

COMDEX, and shipped in the spring of 1984, now known as GEM/1.

== Discography ==

At this point [[Apple Computer]] sued DRI in what would turn into a long

{| class="wikitable"

dispute over the "look and feel" of the GEM/1 system, which was in fact an

!align="left"|Album cover

almost direct copy of the [[Apple Macintosh|Macintosh]]. This eventually led to DRI being forced to change several basic features of the system. While Apple would later go on to sue other companies for similar issues, they lost all such cases in the future.

!align="left"|Album information

|-

|align="left"|

|align="left"|'''''[[Al-Muallim]]'''''

*Released: [[July]], [[2003]]

*Total Sales: 1,000,000

*Singles: "[[Al-Muallim]]" "[[Supplication]]"

|-

|-

|align="left"|

|align="left"|'''''[[My Ummah]]'''''

*Released: [[September]], [[2005]]

*Total Sales: Not yet released

*Singles: "[[Hasbi Rabbi]]" "[[Mother]]" "[[Munajat]]"

|-

|}

==External links==

The resulting "lawsuit friendly" GEM/2 allowed the display of only two fixed

*[http://www.samiyusuf.com/home/index.htm Sami Yusuf] '''Official Website'''

windows on the "desktop" (other programs could do what they wished however),

*[http://www.samiyusuf-tr.com Sami Yusuf] '''Turkish Official Website'''

changed the trash can icon, and removed the animations for things like opening

*[http://www.ourzik.com/?pays=uk]'''islam music'''

and closing windows.

It was otherwise similar to GEM/1, but also included a number of bug fixes

and cosmetic improvements.

<!-- Do not delete!

The last commercial release was GEM/3 which had speed improvements and

See [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]-->

shipped with a number of basic applications.

Later versions of GEM/3 included the ability to work with Bezier curves,

a feature still not common outside the [[PostScript]] world.

Commercial sales of GEM ended with GEM/3.

{{Persondata

The GEM/3 system then underwent a strange evolution.

|NAME=Yusuf, Sami

The core software without the OS or desktop was then sold as a "runtime"

|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=

for use in applications.

|SHORT DESCRIPTION=British musician

That is, the hosting computer no longer "ran" GEM, it was instead built

|DATE OF BIRTH=[[July]] [[1980]]

into the applications that used it.

|PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Tehran]]

This was known as GEM/4 and GEM/5, which differed cosmetically.

|DATE OF DEATH=

|PLACE OF DEATH=

}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yusuf, Sami}}

At the same time the GEM Desktop itself was spun off as a product known

[[Category:1980 births]]

as ViewMAX, which was used solely as a file management shell under [[DR-DOS]].

[[Category:Living people]]

In this form the system could not run other GEM programs.

[[Category:British songwriters]]

This led to the odd situation where you could have a number of applications

[[Category:Performers of Islamic music]]

(including ViewMAX) all with their own copy of the GEM system inside of them,

all taking up memory.

Of course this was rare, there were not that many GEM programs.

In these forms GEM survived until DRI was purchased by [[Novell]] and all

GEM development was cancelled.

[[ar:سامي يوسف]]

Throughout this time DRI had also been working on making the GEM system

[[az:Sami Yusuf]]

capable of multitasking.

[[de:Sami Yusuf]]

This started with X/GEM based on GEM/1, but this required use of one of the

[[es:Sami Yusuf]]

multitasking CP/M based operating systems.

[[fa:سامی یوسف]]

GEM/XM was an updated version of GEM/2 which allowed multitasking and the

[[fr:Sami Yusuf]]

ability to run DOS programs in shell windows (as Windows does today).

[[nl:Sami Yusuf]]

None of these saw the light of day, but the GEM/XM code is now available

[[tr:Sami Yusuf]]

in the public ___domain.

[[ur:سامی یوسف]]

Lee Lorenzen had left soon after the release of GEM/1, when it became clear

that DRI had no strong interest in applications development. He then formed his own company with another of the GEM developers, Dan Meyer, and started Ventura Software. They developed [[Xerox Ventura|Ventura Publisher]], which was later marketted by [[Xerox]] (and eventually to [[Corel]]), which would go on to be a very popular [[desktop publishing]] program for some time.

[[Atari]] licensed GEM/1 and CP/M 68k under terms that allowed it to continue

development on their own (it appears DRI had no interest there).

The resulting OS was called TOS by Atari, and was the operating system for

the [[Atari ST]].

Since TOS was based on GEM/1 and Atari was never sued directly, they did not have to cripple the interface as DRI had to. Development of GEM at Atari took it along other paths than the PC versions, but by the 1990s it included 24-bit color support, configurable window elements, scaleable fonts, preemptive multitasking (via a kernel called MiNT, based on Unix), and a host of other features.

[[Caldera]] have released the source to GEM under the [[GNU]] licence and the development of GEM for PC is continued as [[OpenGEM]] and [[FreeGEM]].

== Description ==

The "full" GEM system consisted of three main parts:

#GEM VDI

#GEM AES

#GEM Desktop

GEM VDI was the core graphics system of the overal GEM engine. It was responsible for "low level" drawing in the form of "draw line from here to here". It included a resolution and coordinate independent set of vector drawing instructions which were called from applications through a fairly simple interface. The VDI also included environment information (state, or context), things like the current color, line thickness, output device, etc.

These commands were then examined by GDOS, whos task it was to send the commands to the proper driver for actual rendering. For instance, if a particular GEM VDI environment was connected to the screen, the VDI instructions were then routed to the screen driver for drawing. Simply changing the environment to point to the printer was all that was needed (in theory) to print, dramatically reducing the developer workload (they formerly had to do printing "by hand" in all applications). GDOS was also responsible for loading up the drivers and any requested fonts when GEM was first loaded.

One major advantage VDI provided over the Macintosh was the way multiple devices and contexts were handled. In the Mac such information was stored in memory inside the application. This resulted in serious problems when attempting to make the Mac handle true multitasking, as the drawing layer ([[QuickDraw]]) needed to have direct memory access into all programs. In GEM VDI however, such information was stored in the device itself, with GDOS creating "virtual devices" for every context &ndash; each window for instance. This advantage remained largely theoretical however, as the multitasking versions of GEM were never officially released.

GEM AES provided the window system, window manager, UI style, and other GUI elements (widgets). Compared to the Macintosh, AES provided a rather spartan look, and the system shipped with a single monospaced font that was somewhat ugly.

AES was based on VDI, but in a more general sense the two parts of GEM were often completely separated in applications. That is, applications typically called AES commands to set up a new window, with the rest of the application using VDI calls to actually draw into that window.

GEM Desktop was an application program that used AES to provide a file manager and launcher, the traditional "desktop" environment that users had come to expect from the Macintosh. Unlike the Macintosh, GEM Desktop was based on top of DOS, and as a result the actual display was cluttered with computer-like items including path names and wildcards. In general GEM was much more "geeky" than the Mac, but simply running a usable shell on DOS was a huge achievement on it's own.

== Links ==

* [http://www.deltasoft.com/ GEM]<br>- an excellent page with history, documentation, and links to various open-source GEM projects

* [http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/6148/gem.html Digital Research's GEM (Intel 8086 version!)]<br>- includes downloadable copies of the latest GEM/3 release and developer system

* http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/GEM/