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If I were to write a basic OS, I'd do it for one of the microcontroller kits that are available, e.g. http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/ http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/ or
by m_eiman 16y ago
If I were to write a basic OS, I'd do it for one of the microcontroller kits that are available, e.g. http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/ http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/ or something similar with an ARM7 cpu. Having a cleaner CPU architecture than x86 is bound to save a lot of headache...
- jacquesm 16y agoThe biggest challenge I found was not to adapt to CPU architecture headaches but to get to the point where the OS was self hosting its development. That took considerably longer than I ever bargained for and at the time virtual machines were pretty much non-existent so djgpp was used to bridge the gap. An edit-compile-test cycle of several minutes + a hang or so quickly eats up the days.
- m_eiman 16y agoAn edit-compile-test cycle of several minutes + a hang or so quickly eats up the days. That's why the micros are an interesting option, they're running on real hardware but can be flashed in seconds and debugged in realtime with a JTAG cable. Very convenient. But on the other hand they tend not to have much storage or network connectivity, so it depends on what you're interested in if they're the right choice. Blinking LEDs and controlling step motors is always fun, though!
- leoc 16y agohttp://pandaboard.org/ http://pandaboard.org/ and http://beagleboard.org/ http://beagleboard.org/ to the rescue I think, though there's no free software that supports Pandaboard (OMAP 4430/Cortex-A9) JTAG yet.