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I like this. Have you thought about building this on top a regular shell? Adding commands would be a matter of wrapping and allowing existing application calls.

by rendx 4y ago

I like this. Have you thought about building this on top a regular shell? Adding commands would be a matter of wrapping and allowing existing application calls. As an example, a tool to message users exists: It is called "mail". There is even federation!

PostOnce 4y ago
That sounds like way less fun, to me. One of my toy projects is building a "desktop OS" in the CLI, with its own mini apps (python), and a drawille style GUI and windowing. And ANSI color. There's no point at all, but it's fun.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  It'd be fun to make like a modern ZX Spectrum / Commodore style machine - where the shell is also the interpreted language for the actual machine. It's a shame how complicated modern computers have made stuff like drawing directly to the screen in comparison.
- tingletech 4y ago
  Once upon a time I ran a large interactive telnet service (a campus wide information system) that one could run gopher from and connect to various library online public access catalogs and wide area information systems servers. You would telnet to these BSDi boxes from the campus network anonymous and select services from a menu. We had a special custom hardened shell for this. Originally it was some script that ran from sh; but the campus network of the 90s was pretty adversarial system and it was too easy to bust out of the shell. Even with the hardened shell, we booted from a read only network drive. When we shut it down for about a year it displayed my phone number. I had some interesting calls from old faculty and researchers. Anyway, I would not give a full shell to randos from the Internet. (Sorry, I replied at the wrong level, but this web view won’t let my copy this message)
NoGravitas 4y ago
I reckon that would be a Pubnix. Most Pubnixes have, besides the usual tools like mail, local bulletin boards and so on.

by rendx 4y ago

PostOnce 4y ago

That sounds like way less fun, to me. One of my toy projects is building a "desktop OS" in the CLI, with its own mini apps (python), and a drawille style GUI and windowing. And ANSI color. There's no point at all, but it's fun.

nivenkos 4y ago
It'd be fun to make like a modern ZX Spectrum / Commodore style machine - where the shell is also the interpreted language for the actual machine. It's a shame how complicated modern computers have made stuff like drawing directly to the screen in comparison.
tingletech 4y ago
Once upon a time I ran a large interactive telnet service (a campus wide information system) that one could run gopher from and connect to various library online public access catalogs and wide area information systems servers. You would telnet to these BSDi boxes from the campus network anonymous and select services from a menu. We had a special custom hardened shell for this. Originally it was some script that ran from sh; but the campus network of the 90s was pretty adversarial system and it was too easy to bust out of the shell. Even with the hardened shell, we booted from a read only network drive. When we shut it down for about a year it displayed my phone number. I had some interesting calls from old faculty and researchers. Anyway, I would not give a full shell to randos from the Internet. (Sorry, I replied at the wrong level, but this web view won’t let my copy this message)

NoGravitas 4y ago

I reckon that would be a Pubnix. Most Pubnixes have, besides the usual tools like mail, local bulletin boards and so on.