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> A hobby operating system for vintage 32-bit PCs. I am all in favour of great projects, but why a differentiation between 32-bits or 64-bits? I don't understa

> A hobby operating system for vintage 32-bit PCs. I am all in favour of great projects, but why a differentiation between 32-bits or 64-bits? I don't understand that. Is a computer that is 32 bit or 64 bit, either way which, not worthy? Edit: I understand a motivation if it is on simplicity choosing one or the other, but other than that I don't see why that should ever be a goal worthy to be pursued. Software should really "just work" no matter the number of bits and bytes.

ReptileMan 4mo ago
32 is vintager vintage
- Aldipower 4mo ago
  32 bit vinteger ;-)
  - bayindirh 4mo ago
    You can do 32 bit voolean too, great for that vintage bitmasks to store application flags. =]
grebc 4mo ago
“Vintage” 64 bit PC’s aren’t a thing. > Edit: I understand a motivation if it is on simplicity choosing one or the other, but other than that I don't see why that should ever be a goal worthy to be pursued. Software should really "just work" no matter the number of bits and bytes. Not really how software works.
- Aldipower 4mo ago
  > “Vintage” 64 bit PC’s aren’t a thing. Just sold my SGI Indigo 2 for 900 $ ! Vintage 64 bit is absolutely a thing. :-)
  - amuradbegovic 4mo ago
    they said PCs
- trashb 4mo ago
  The DEC 3000 would like to have a word with you.
  - Aldipower 4mo ago
    It even has 64 bit "word" size!
  - nocman 4mo ago
    Yeah, DEC Alpha was the first thing to come to my mind. I guess some might argue it wasn't a "PC" - if you don't include what used to be called "workstations". This is largely because PC meant "personal computer", and very few people could afford their own DEC Alpha - they were very pricey ($20k at some point in the 90's, I believe).
- RobotToaster 4mo ago
  Itanium was released 25 years ago now...
  - hnlmorg 4mo ago
    Whilst that’s definitely old in computer terms, even “retro”, is it old enough to be “vintage”? Personally I’d have said it isn’t. But these terms are subjective.
    - rob74 4mo ago
      "Vintage" usually refers to actually old stuff, while "retro" refers to new stuff that looks/sounds/feels like old stuff. So GentleOS is a retro OS designed to run on vintage hardware. (That distinction wasn't clear to me either, so I had to look it up - TIL).
      - hnlmorg 4mo ago
        That’s not true in computer terminology. “Retro” has a long history (“vintage” you might say haha) of referring to old hardware and software. Just type the word “retro” into YouTube (for example) and you’ll see thousands of videos from hundreds of channels spanning decades talking about old games and computers. Eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro_gaming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro_gaming
pjc50 4mo ago
Don't worry, this is portable to both vintage word sizes: 32 and 16.
trashb 4mo ago
x86 boots in 16-bit real mode. Then you need to specifically transition into 32-Bit, and from 32-Bit it can be transitioned to 64-Bit Architecture... The last step (32-bit to 64-bit) can a bit of a can of worms especially on older platforms where 64-bit implementations can differ greatly and 32-bit "just works tm". 32-bit is quite well supported and has enough resources to make some interesting programs work without much hassle. I think the author has made the decision not to support 64-bit mode due to needing to balance the complexity and usability of the project. It is a hobby project after all. Since the author maintains a 16-bit and 32-bit for this project I suppose if you wanted you can always fork and maintain a 64-bit version if you wanted to.
luke8086 4mo ago
In this context, 32-bit means the minimal requirement. You can absolutely run even the 16-bit version on a 64-bit PC, provided it has BIOS/legacy-boot mode. It only won't work on modern pure-UEFI systems because that would require writing full stack of USB drivers for keyboard and mouse, and that would be a huge task.
deleted 4mo ago
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ReptileMan 4mo ago

32 is vintager vintage

Aldipower 4mo ago
32 bit vinteger ;-)
- bayindirh 4mo ago
  You can do 32 bit voolean too, great for that vintage bitmasks to store application flags. =]

grebc 4mo ago

“Vintage” 64 bit PC’s aren’t a thing. > Edit: I understand a motivation if it is on simplicity choosing one or the other, but other than that I don't see why that should ever be a goal worthy to be pursued. Software should really "just work" no matter the number of bits and bytes. Not really how software works.

Aldipower 4mo ago
> “Vintage” 64 bit PC’s aren’t a thing. Just sold my SGI Indigo 2 for 900 $ ! Vintage 64 bit is absolutely a thing. :-)
- amuradbegovic 4mo ago
  they said PCs
trashb 4mo ago
The DEC 3000 would like to have a word with you.
- Aldipower 4mo ago
  It even has 64 bit "word" size!
- nocman 4mo ago
  Yeah, DEC Alpha was the first thing to come to my mind. I guess some might argue it wasn't a "PC" - if you don't include what used to be called "workstations". This is largely because PC meant "personal computer", and very few people could afford their own DEC Alpha - they were very pricey ($20k at some point in the 90's, I believe).
RobotToaster 4mo ago
Itanium was released 25 years ago now...
- hnlmorg 4mo ago
  Whilst that’s definitely old in computer terms, even “retro”, is it old enough to be “vintage”? Personally I’d have said it isn’t. But these terms are subjective.
  - rob74 4mo ago
    "Vintage" usually refers to actually old stuff, while "retro" refers to new stuff that looks/sounds/feels like old stuff. So GentleOS is a retro OS designed to run on vintage hardware. (That distinction wasn't clear to me either, so I had to look it up - TIL).
    - hnlmorg 4mo ago
      That’s not true in computer terminology. “Retro” has a long history (“vintage” you might say haha) of referring to old hardware and software. Just type the word “retro” into YouTube (for example) and you’ll see thousands of videos from hundreds of channels spanning decades talking about old games and computers. Eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro_gaming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro_gaming

pjc50 4mo ago

Don't worry, this is portable to both vintage word sizes: 32 and 16.

trashb 4mo ago

x86 boots in 16-bit real mode. Then you need to specifically transition into 32-Bit, and from 32-Bit it can be transitioned to 64-Bit Architecture... The last step (32-bit to 64-bit) can a bit of a can of worms especially on older platforms where 64-bit implementations can differ greatly and 32-bit "just works tm". 32-bit is quite well supported and has enough resources to make some interesting programs work without much hassle. I think the author has made the decision not to support 64-bit mode due to needing to balance the complexity and usability of the project. It is a hobby project after all. Since the author maintains a 16-bit and 32-bit for this project I suppose if you wanted you can always fork and maintain a 64-bit version if you wanted to.

luke8086 4mo ago

In this context, 32-bit means the minimal requirement. You can absolutely run even the 16-bit version on a 64-bit PC, provided it has BIOS/legacy-boot mode. It only won't work on modern pure-UEFI systems because that would require writing full stack of USB drivers for keyboard and mouse, and that would be a huge task.

deleted 4mo ago

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