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It'd be a huge undertaking to even get the code to build. It had its own Perl-based build system, and I'm not sure that those SDKs are even available any longe

It'd be a huge undertaking to even get the code to build. It had its own Perl-based build system, and I'm not sure that those SDKs are even available any longer. Edit: It looks like someone out there is still developing on it: https://gist.github.com/artem78/cb2b9650af186844f7b5654964676284 https://gist.github.com/artem78/cb2b9650af186844f7b565496467...

lproven 1y ago
[Original author of the linked article here] > It'd be a huge undertaking to even get the code to build. It possibly would. On the other hand, a very educational undertaking. I was a Psion owner and user from the 1980s until the 2000-noughties, and I have posted things in various places about the Symbian source code over the years. Often some ex-Psion or ex-Nokia people pop up and mention the build tools, not unlike the post you link to. The knowledge is still out there. Updating it might be more instructive than building yet another Unix-like OS. There are so many of those on Github it's remarkable; here's a list: https://github.com/jubalh/awesome-os https://github.com/jubalh/awesome-os Some got a remarkably long way. A handful of examples I admired: * Serenity — https://serenityos.org/ https://serenityos.org/ -- also C++ * AtheOS — https://atheos.metaproject.frl/ https://atheos.metaproject.frl/ * Syllable — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable_Desktop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable_Desktop * SkyOS — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyOS * HelenOS (academic) — https://www.helenos.org/ https://www.helenos.org/ I could go on. There are dozens. Many are to some extent Unix-like. Symbian was very different indeed, which is one of the things that makes it interesting and different. > It had its own Perl-based build system, and I'm not sure that those SDKs are even available any longer. Perl is, of course. It may initially be necessary to hand-roll it, but I feel that a modernised Symbian that could be built with GCC or LLVM, and had more standard string types, error handling, and so on, would be a very interesting and desirable thing, even if it was totally incompatible with all classic 20+ year old Symbian software. And frankly, even if the result was 10x bigger and less memory-efficient, it would still be tiny compared to Linux or any of the BSDs.

lproven 1y ago

[Original author of the linked article here] > It'd be a huge undertaking to even get the code to build. It possibly would. On the other hand, a very educational undertaking. I was a Psion owner and user from the 1980s until the 2000-noughties, and I have posted things in various places about the Symbian source code over the years. Often some ex-Psion or ex-Nokia people pop up and mention the build tools, not unlike the post you link to. The knowledge is still out there. Updating it might be more instructive than building yet another Unix-like OS. There are so many of those on Github it's remarkable; here's a list: https://github.com/jubalh/awesome-os https://github.com/jubalh/awesome-os Some got a remarkably long way. A handful of examples I admired: * Serenity — https://serenityos.org/ https://serenityos.org/ -- also C++ * AtheOS — https://atheos.metaproject.frl/ https://atheos.metaproject.frl/ * Syllable — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable_Desktop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable_Desktop * SkyOS — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyOS * HelenOS (academic) — https://www.helenos.org/ https://www.helenos.org/ I could go on. There are dozens. Many are to some extent Unix-like. Symbian was very different indeed, which is one of the things that makes it interesting and different. > It had its own Perl-based build system, and I'm not sure that those SDKs are even available any longer. Perl is, of course. It may initially be necessary to hand-roll it, but I feel that a modernised Symbian that could be built with GCC or LLVM, and had more standard string types, error handling, and so on, would be a very interesting and desirable thing, even if it was totally incompatible with all classic 20+ year old Symbian software. And frankly, even if the result was 10x bigger and less memory-efficient, it would still be tiny compared to Linux or any of the BSDs.