6 ms·

Show HN: TreeOS – A 16-bit bootsector Christmas tree demo

141 points by cfallin 6y ago

rahimiali 6y ago
I’m curious about these qemu-first OSes (like this one I’ve been following [1]). Do they usually just work when you boot a modern pc with them? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SerenityOS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SerenityOS
- breckinloggins 6y ago
  No. In fact in one of his recent videos Andreas talked about some of the challenges he and other Serenity developers have had getting it to run on real hardware. QEMU, it turns out, is very "forgiving" even when emulating real HW (i.e. not virtio). That can make it challenging when the code meets real clock-synchronized circuits for the first time. I do like the VM-based OS approach for hobbyist OS's, though. Unless one is specifically interested in the challenge of supporting actual hardware, I think the "QEMU first" approach is the way to go. It simplifies the otherwise-vast problem space and encourages other hobbyists to try out your system or join your development effort. My first hobby OS project (~2000) was done by repeatedly writing a floppy image to 3.5" disk and booting it on an old junk laptop I had. It was painful and since then any hobby bare metal programming that doesn't involve microcontrollers I will happily do from the comfort of my modern machine and a VM.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  I don't think they'd boot if your BIOS is UEFI, you'd have to set it to boot from the MBR.
gregsadetsky 6y ago
I was curious to try, so I followed the project's Makefile to create floppy.img and than ran it in a web x86 emulator. It worked! Grab the floppy.img file here: https://paste.c-net.org/CannotCursing https://paste.c-net.org/CannotCursing Then head over to: https://copy.sh/v86/ https://copy.sh/v86/ Set the "Floppy disk image" to the above-downloaded file, and click "Start Emulation" Cheers & Best wishes!
- tigerwash 6y ago
  Nice, thanks! :)
- cfallin 6y ago
  Thanks for working that out -- I had looked into using a JS x86 emulator of some sort to put up a demo when I wrote this, but ran out of time last Christmas :-) Happy to hear it works with that emulator!
  - fuzzfactor 6y ago
    Excellent, these are four good sectors in this floppy-sized IMG. Copy verbatim bitwise to a floppy and it boots bare metal in 5 seconds to the animated graphic. You only need the first four sectors; 0, 1, 2, & 3, or about 2K. Sector 0 is a working MBR/bootsector which continues with sectors 1, 2, and finishes with 3. On a USB flash drive most BIOS will want to treat it like a HDD rather than a large floppy so you will need to add a partition table on sector zero before it will boot from a HDD. So write zeros to the USB drive[0] then eject, reboot and copy the first four sectors (or the whole 2880) from treeosFloppy.img to the blank USB drive[1]. [0] dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx careful with dd at the Linux command line, make sure /dev/sdx is the exact USB drive you want to wipe [1] dd if=/mountedlocation/treeosFloppy.img of=/dev/sdx bs=512 count=4 Then partition the USB drive using CFDISK at Linux command line, in MBR layout, marked bootable, as type 0c FAT32. -this simply adds a partition table to its designated empty space still remaining on sector 0, the treeOS MBR bytes are still there on sector 0 after this too. The USB drive should now boot directly to the animated graphic not much differently than the floppy. --treeOS MBR does not actually utilize the partition table bytes, but when it's not a floppy, BIOS will not normally load & run sector 0 unless an active marked bootable partition table of some kind is found in its proper place on the physical sector 0 to begin with. Reboot to Windows then quick-format the USB drive FAT32 using Windows. Do not repartition, just quick-format. -the USB drive should now work normally for storage --but when properly selected as a boot device, will go directly to the graphic Alternatively using a regular HDD you can copy sector 0 of treeosFloppy.img to a new file on NTFS like c:\treeos.mbr then Windows BOOTMGR and/or NTLDR can be configured to put treeOS on its built-in Windows bootmenu alongside Windows by correctly referencing c:\treeos.mbr as a bootsector entry. As long as Windows is installed on a MBR-layout HDD for BIOS booting. With sectors 1, 2, & 3 of treeosFloppy.img in place on the corresponding (otherwise unused by BIOS) 1, 2, & 3 positions on the HDD, when c:\treeos.mbr is selected you can get the treeOS graphic from a Windows bootmenu even while Windows occupies sector 0 with its own regular Windows MBR. Plus then you're already multibooting Windows the factory way. Merry Christmas!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hrtk 6y ago
Did anyone successfully burned it to a USB somehow and ran it ?
trollied 6y ago
Just imagine the modern version of this.... 1 terabyte of JavaScript later ;)
- gregsadetsky 6y ago
  There are many great code golf'ed, Tweet-sized JavaScript programs here -- https://www.dwitter.net/ https://www.dwitter.net/ :-)
  - schaefer 6y ago
    I love this link, thank you!
    - gregsadetsky 6y ago
      My pleasure! I learned about it on HN as well, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25088683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25088683 for a recent (amazing) post
- mikewarot 6y ago
  In a recent Advent of code (Night 23) I back ported my pascal Solution to Turbo Pascal 7 in DOSBOX... I had to use a file of longint because I couldn't fit 1,000,001 elements in RAM (4 megabytes)... but used a temp file instead. It took 10 minutes instead of 0.25 seconds, but it worked. Both are command line programs, no GUI. 64 bit exe 215,850 bytes 16 bit DOS 5,632 bytes The bloat is real.
  - grishka 6y ago
    > 64 bit exe 215,850 bytes I believe you could make it significantly smaller at least by tweaking the linker settings and building in release mode, if this wasn't it already.
    - mikewarot 6y ago
      Yes, tweaking could make things smaller, but the point is that nobody bothers these days.
app4soft 6y ago
Title should be... > Show HN: TreeOS – A 16-bit bootsector Christmas tree demo (2019) ... as there are no new commits since 25 Dec 2019.
- gabrielsroka 6y ago
  There were some commits today.
  - cfallin 6y ago
    Parent comment was correct at time of posting :-) This was a project from last Christmas that I was encouraged to post again; after inspiration from another thread here I added a new version that fits in a single sector.
arthurcolle 6y ago
So if I put this on a floppy and put it in an old computer, it would just boot to this image? Is that right?
- city41 6y ago
  Yup. Here is a good video explaining how it works: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1UzTf0Qo37A https://youtube.com/watch?v=1UzTf0Qo37A
hegzploit 6y ago
Anybody got any resources, starting points to where i could learn this cool stuff about qemu and bare-metal programming etc..?
tpmx 6y ago
From the readme: > that uses the BIOS to load data from the boot disk That's not a bootsector demo (it's larger than 512 bytes). From reading the source: It's a hybrid bootloader + demo, in a pragmatic manner. Here's an eclectic selection of other nice, not widely known christmas themed demos I found earlier (merry christmas!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X74bhXltFo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X74bhXltFo (BBC Micro) > Bitshifters - Xmas 19 Demo --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t02TvLbQec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t02TvLbQec (PC, CGA) > Una simpatica demo natalizia datata 1986 per l'amato PC. Quante volte l'ho guardata quand'ero più giovincello:o) --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDitgPGh_MQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDitgPGh_MQ (Atari 8-bit) > christmas collection demo for Atari 8-bit
- cfallin 6y ago
  You're right, it started as an attempt to fit into 512 bytes but right now it's 4 sectors (2KB). Of course, on a modern hard drive with 4KB sectors, we might stretch our definitions a bit :-) (Though the BIOS still only loads 512 bytes in such a case)
  - cfallin 6y ago
    ... and now there's a true 512-byte version as well (removing the text and shifting some of the variables to other memory did it) -- `make floppy_1sector.img`. Anyway, thanks for the prompt/challenge!
    - tpmx 6y ago
      :-) Nice!
  - tpmx 6y ago
    I got some serious deja vu reading that source code by the way. 24 years ago, as my senior year project I decided I would try to build a DOS-like OS that could boot from a floppy. I didn't get very far beyond a rudimentary CLI, some fun builtin commands and the beginnings of a FAT-like file system... "hey, I made something that could boot from a 1981 PC, from scratch, and I understood it all the way.". That's a pretty nice feeling - I think you probably felt the same way?
amelius 6y ago
Now try that with Apple's locked down bootloader.
- lights0123 6y ago
  It won't work in 2015 and later models because they're UEFI only—anything before that supports BIOS and should run this just fine, and anything later is UEFI class 3, which is starting to become more and more popular in other x86 computers as well. For M1, this obviously won't work because it's a different architecture. I'm not sure exactly what standard they use to boot, but nothing's stopping you from disabling secure boot and booting whatever you want. Their GPU may not support VGA, though.
mixmastamyk 6y ago
Fun, reminds me of some similar holiday-themed DOS executables I made back in the day. They were drawn using a program called TheDraw and then could be dumped onscreen with Turbo Pascal or C. Add a few batch commands to check the date in the login script and you’ve got some holiday cheer. Believe I converted some of them into ansi and was trying to get the old encoding into utf8 last Christmas.
lbj 6y ago
I love it - The amount of comments in the code make it a pleasant read.

141 points by cfallin 6y ago

I’m curious about these qemu-first OSes (like this one I’ve been following [1]). Do they usually just work when you boot a modern pc with them? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SerenityOS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SerenityOS

breckinloggins 6y ago
No. In fact in one of his recent videos Andreas talked about some of the challenges he and other Serenity developers have had getting it to run on real hardware. QEMU, it turns out, is very "forgiving" even when emulating real HW (i.e. not virtio). That can make it challenging when the code meets real clock-synchronized circuits for the first time. I do like the VM-based OS approach for hobbyist OS's, though. Unless one is specifically interested in the challenge of supporting actual hardware, I think the "QEMU first" approach is the way to go. It simplifies the otherwise-vast problem space and encourages other hobbyists to try out your system or join your development effort. My first hobby OS project (~2000) was done by repeatedly writing a floppy image to 3.5" disk and booting it on an old junk laptop I had. It was painful and since then any hobby bare metal programming that doesn't involve microcontrollers I will happily do from the comfort of my modern machine and a VM.
secondcoming 6y ago
I don't think they'd boot if your BIOS is UEFI, you'd have to set it to boot from the MBR.

gregsadetsky 6y ago

I was curious to try, so I followed the project's Makefile to create floppy.img and than ran it in a web x86 emulator. It worked! Grab the floppy.img file here: https://paste.c-net.org/CannotCursing https://paste.c-net.org/CannotCursing Then head over to: https://copy.sh/v86/ https://copy.sh/v86/ Set the "Floppy disk image" to the above-downloaded file, and click "Start Emulation" Cheers & Best wishes!

tigerwash 6y ago
Nice, thanks! :)
cfallin 6y ago
Thanks for working that out -- I had looked into using a JS x86 emulator of some sort to put up a demo when I wrote this, but ran out of time last Christmas :-) Happy to hear it works with that emulator!
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  Excellent, these are four good sectors in this floppy-sized IMG. Copy verbatim bitwise to a floppy and it boots bare metal in 5 seconds to the animated graphic. You only need the first four sectors; 0, 1, 2, & 3, or about 2K. Sector 0 is a working MBR/bootsector which continues with sectors 1, 2, and finishes with 3. On a USB flash drive most BIOS will want to treat it like a HDD rather than a large floppy so you will need to add a partition table on sector zero before it will boot from a HDD. So write zeros to the USB drive[0] then eject, reboot and copy the first four sectors (or the whole 2880) from treeosFloppy.img to the blank USB drive[1]. [0] dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx careful with dd at the Linux command line, make sure /dev/sdx is the exact USB drive you want to wipe [1] dd if=/mountedlocation/treeosFloppy.img of=/dev/sdx bs=512 count=4 Then partition the USB drive using CFDISK at Linux command line, in MBR layout, marked bootable, as type 0c FAT32. -this simply adds a partition table to its designated empty space still remaining on sector 0, the treeOS MBR bytes are still there on sector 0 after this too. The USB drive should now boot directly to the animated graphic not much differently than the floppy. --treeOS MBR does not actually utilize the partition table bytes, but when it's not a floppy, BIOS will not normally load & run sector 0 unless an active marked bootable partition table of some kind is found in its proper place on the physical sector 0 to begin with. Reboot to Windows then quick-format the USB drive FAT32 using Windows. Do not repartition, just quick-format. -the USB drive should now work normally for storage --but when properly selected as a boot device, will go directly to the graphic Alternatively using a regular HDD you can copy sector 0 of treeosFloppy.img to a new file on NTFS like c:\treeos.mbr then Windows BOOTMGR and/or NTLDR can be configured to put treeOS on its built-in Windows bootmenu alongside Windows by correctly referencing c:\treeos.mbr as a bootsector entry. As long as Windows is installed on a MBR-layout HDD for BIOS booting. With sectors 1, 2, & 3 of treeosFloppy.img in place on the corresponding (otherwise unused by BIOS) 1, 2, & 3 positions on the HDD, when c:\treeos.mbr is selected you can get the treeOS graphic from a Windows bootmenu even while Windows occupies sector 0 with its own regular Windows MBR. Plus then you're already multibooting Windows the factory way. Merry Christmas!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hrtk 6y ago

Did anyone successfully burned it to a USB somehow and ran it ?

trollied 6y ago

Just imagine the modern version of this.... 1 terabyte of JavaScript later ;)

gregsadetsky 6y ago
There are many great code golf'ed, Tweet-sized JavaScript programs here -- https://www.dwitter.net/ https://www.dwitter.net/ :-)
- schaefer 6y ago
  I love this link, thank you!
  - gregsadetsky 6y ago
    My pleasure! I learned about it on HN as well, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25088683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25088683 for a recent (amazing) post
mikewarot 6y ago
In a recent Advent of code (Night 23) I back ported my pascal Solution to Turbo Pascal 7 in DOSBOX... I had to use a file of longint because I couldn't fit 1,000,001 elements in RAM (4 megabytes)... but used a temp file instead. It took 10 minutes instead of 0.25 seconds, but it worked. Both are command line programs, no GUI. 64 bit exe 215,850 bytes 16 bit DOS 5,632 bytes The bloat is real.
- grishka 6y ago
  > 64 bit exe 215,850 bytes I believe you could make it significantly smaller at least by tweaking the linker settings and building in release mode, if this wasn't it already.
  - mikewarot 6y ago
    Yes, tweaking could make things smaller, but the point is that nobody bothers these days.

app4soft 6y ago

Title should be... > Show HN: TreeOS – A 16-bit bootsector Christmas tree demo (2019) ... as there are no new commits since 25 Dec 2019.

gabrielsroka 6y ago
There were some commits today.
- cfallin 6y ago
  Parent comment was correct at time of posting :-) This was a project from last Christmas that I was encouraged to post again; after inspiration from another thread here I added a new version that fits in a single sector.

arthurcolle 6y ago

So if I put this on a floppy and put it in an old computer, it would just boot to this image? Is that right?

city41 6y ago
Yup. Here is a good video explaining how it works: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1UzTf0Qo37A https://youtube.com/watch?v=1UzTf0Qo37A

hegzploit 6y ago

Anybody got any resources, starting points to where i could learn this cool stuff about qemu and bare-metal programming etc..?

tpmx 6y ago

From the readme: > that uses the BIOS to load data from the boot disk That's not a bootsector demo (it's larger than 512 bytes). From reading the source: It's a hybrid bootloader + demo, in a pragmatic manner. Here's an eclectic selection of other nice, not widely known christmas themed demos I found earlier (merry christmas!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X74bhXltFo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X74bhXltFo (BBC Micro) > Bitshifters - Xmas 19 Demo --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t02TvLbQec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t02TvLbQec (PC, CGA) > Una simpatica demo natalizia datata 1986 per l'amato PC. Quante volte l'ho guardata quand'ero più giovincello:o) --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDitgPGh_MQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDitgPGh_MQ (Atari 8-bit) > christmas collection demo for Atari 8-bit

cfallin 6y ago
You're right, it started as an attempt to fit into 512 bytes but right now it's 4 sectors (2KB). Of course, on a modern hard drive with 4KB sectors, we might stretch our definitions a bit :-) (Though the BIOS still only loads 512 bytes in such a case)
- cfallin 6y ago
  ... and now there's a true 512-byte version as well (removing the text and shifting some of the variables to other memory did it) -- `make floppy_1sector.img`. Anyway, thanks for the prompt/challenge!
  - tpmx 6y ago
    :-) Nice!
- tpmx 6y ago
  I got some serious deja vu reading that source code by the way. 24 years ago, as my senior year project I decided I would try to build a DOS-like OS that could boot from a floppy. I didn't get very far beyond a rudimentary CLI, some fun builtin commands and the beginnings of a FAT-like file system... "hey, I made something that could boot from a 1981 PC, from scratch, and I understood it all the way.". That's a pretty nice feeling - I think you probably felt the same way?

amelius 6y ago

Now try that with Apple's locked down bootloader.

lights0123 6y ago
It won't work in 2015 and later models because they're UEFI only—anything before that supports BIOS and should run this just fine, and anything later is UEFI class 3, which is starting to become more and more popular in other x86 computers as well. For M1, this obviously won't work because it's a different architecture. I'm not sure exactly what standard they use to boot, but nothing's stopping you from disabling secure boot and booting whatever you want. Their GPU may not support VGA, though.

mixmastamyk 6y ago

Fun, reminds me of some similar holiday-themed DOS executables I made back in the day. They were drawn using a program called TheDraw and then could be dumped onscreen with Turbo Pascal or C. Add a few batch commands to check the date in the login script and you’ve got some holiday cheer. Believe I converted some of them into ansi and was trying to get the old encoding into utf8 last Christmas.

lbj 6y ago

I love it - The amount of comments in the code make it a pleasant read.