DOS TASK SWITCHING FOR GEOWORKS

	Having ran Microshaft's Windows 3.0, and being one of their Beta testers, I think that GeoWorks is the best GUI that there is. However, I do miss being able to several DOS applications at once and switch between them while also running GEOWORKS.

	There is a solution that will kind of work until either GEOWORKS includes this feature, or until there are more GEOWORKS applications for those of us that have thrown Windows and it's applications into the crapper (where they belong).

	First, Microshaft may have gotten one thing right, MSDOS 5.0 is the best DOS that I have yet to run. It loads most of DOS into high memory leaving me about 620 to 635 K free when I run it. The latest version 5.0 .409c seems quite complete even though it is a beta version. No major, or maybe even minor bugs have been reported. It is worth going out and trying to find this version of DOS there are many people who have it, and they might let you borrow it.  If someone could inform me if it legal or not legal to upload beta versions I might be pursuaded to upload my copy. Let me know.

	What this is all leading to is this, in the DOS Shell (sometimes hated in the past) there is a built in DOS task switcher ! This will let you open and run several DOS programs at once and switch between them (note: you cannot multitask these DOS programs).  Since GEOWORKS is a DOS application, you can run it from the shell.

	One problem exsists, Geoworks doesn't run with MSDOS 5.0 unless you trick it into thinking that MSDOS 5.0 is something else. So hear is how you do that, this is right from GEOWORKS customer assistance. At the DOS prompt type the following.

SETVER GEOS.EXE 4.0

	Now reboot your computer and GEOWORKS will run fine. By the way if you don't do this GEOWORKS will just set there and do nothing. It doesn't blow up your computer, or your hard drive, or even itself, like Windows has been known to do. Thank you Berkely Software for such a well behaved program !!!

	Anyway, enough of Microbashing, on to the task switching. Frorm the DOS prompt, enter the DOS Shell. Pull down the options menu and enable task switching. Go to the GEOWORKS subdirectory and while holding down the shift key doubleclick your mouse on GEOS.EXE this will load GEOWORKS into the active task list. While still in the DOS shell go to any other dos subdirectories and do the same to any other dos executable program that you did to GEOS.EXE, this will load them into the active task list. 

	Double clicking on any task on the list activate that task. When you are in any other task than GEOWORKS, you can get back to the DOS Shell by pressing control escape. However, you can not get back into the DOS Shell from inside GEOWORKS. So, go to DOS programs within GEOWORKS click on the dos prompt, and then do the control escape key to get the DOS Shell back up.

	That pretty sums up the process, I have done this many times using MSDOS 5.0 .409C and have had no problems, but that doesn't mean that you might not run into a problem. One more fun trick I found out. You can run two seperate sessions of GEOWORKS at the same time. Run GEOWORKS and go to the GEOWORKS subdirectory (or are they now file folders like on a MAC) and double click on GEOS.EXE. Pretty interesting. By the way this can also be done from the DOS Shell. I'm about out of room on this page, SO HAPPY HACKING AND WAY TO GO GEOWORKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!