Xcom: a cross-platform graphics user interface

Xcom is a crossplatform GUI system: a multi-windowed, multi-tasking environment. Xcom allows you to browse, copy, view and manage your files, start and stop programs, watch and listen basic media content and music. Unlike other windowing systems and protocols, it integrates the basic functionality as a monolithic, cohesive program. Xcom can run on top of various kernel, currently the DOS version is available publicly. Xcom is tiny in size, fast, doesn’t requires installation process. Xcom is hundreds of times faster and smaller than competitive systems – it requires only about 5 MBytes of disk space, and starts up within a few seconds. Xcom has a familiar appearance of classic operating system user interfaces. Xcom is a handy tool to keep it on your retro computer, it can work magnitudes faster than any other modern desktop environment, meanwhile the features are up-to date. Xcom has all the basic tools for browsing pictures, listening to music files, reading and writing text documents and drawing simple graphics. This is an interesting approach to developing a full… User interface? Operating environment? It currently is only available for DOS, but other systems should follow. It does have a few intrinsic limitations – since it’s entirely contained in one program, you can’t develop for this or create new applications, since it’s not a toolkit and doesn’t have a compiler or anything like that. It’s also not open source, and while that doesn’t mean it’s not good or not interesting, it does limit the interest this will gather in the wider community. Regardless, it looks great, and it’s clear a lot of work and love went into it.