I've been thinking about what it would take to write a TUI windowing system as writing the bindings for X doesn't really interest me right now.
The big gain is that if I can get a TUI windowing system working, then it will work on both [universe] and [scarletdme] .
I'm also calling this an operating system as some of these TUI systems are straddling a line where they are windowing but also doing cooperative multitasking. If I can get windowing working, I think it would be a real change on the level of NovaShell or EVA. The chances aren't great though, I think I would need to write some very specific code to get this idea to work.
These are some examples from DOS and Linux. Twin works fantastically and I could use it with UniVerse as is. However writing something in BASIC directly is too attractive.
Twin is a TUI desktop environment created by Massimiliano Ghilardi in 1993.
vtm is another TUI desktop environment for Linux
Turbo Vision is a TUI framework created by Borland in 1990.
DOS Shell a file manager made by Microsoft in 1988.
DeskMate is a operating system for the TRS-80 computer made by Tandy in 1984.
DESQView is an operating system by Quarterdeck made in 1985.
TopView is an operating system that ran ontop of DOS made by IBM in 1985.
Sidekick was personal information manager made by Borland in 1984.