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MenuetOS: Written in Assembly, fits on a floppy, has GUI
- rw 17y agoAn interview with two of the developers: http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/315421/we_talk_developers_behind_menuetos_an_operating_system_written_entirely_assembly_language?pp=1 http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/315421/we_talk_devel...
- yangyang 17y agoInteresting and impressive. The 64 bit floppy image runs fine under VirtualBox if you select a 64 bit OS.
- stinkytaco 17y agoVirtual Box? It's great that people can try it out and see what it's capable of, but doesn't that sort of defeat the point? I mean, if its real claim to fame is that it's written in assembler than it seems that running it inside a C (is VB C?) application on top of a C operating system would seem to miss its best qualities. Now if I could only find a floppy around here...
- yangyang 17y agoWell if you want to try it out for a few minutes, as I guess most people on here will, it beats rebooting your PC (or figuring out how to even make it boot on a MacBook). It's not like it's full featured enough for daily use anyway. I can't really see your point to be honest.
- dejan 17y agoSeemed like a good idea when they first got it out. It seems now like it was soo long ago. Maybe it is interesting for embedded devices, but seems they've lost their purpose. It was never meant for business, but again, what's the point?
- hvs 17y agoYou're reading this on a site called "Hacker News" and you have to ask that? How about: the challenge.
- dejan 17y agoThere is a difference between a challenge that is of use for this world, and a challenge just because. I don't see technological, logical, or knowledge progress in the attempt to write complete OS in assembly (anymore). I've done it myself, in high school, just for fun, a 16bit. That is also when MenuetOS came out. Now I spend my time more wisely. I've actually went on doing things that benefit the society the technology and the users. Not that menuetOS is bad, but I suggest they reorient them selves so that there is that usable part. And I can see space for it, in embedding computing f.i. Far from having no respect for their work, which I have my hands in from day one.
- jacquesm 17y agoSo, essentially your point is that because you have already done something others should be spending their time more productive ? To some the challenge really is all there is. I'm very happy to see some counterculture to the bloatware that is the norm. This is an amazingly compact and neat hack, it incorporates a very fast and lightweight GUI that can be used for general purpose computers just as easily as for embedded systems.
- dejan 17y agoHmm. I don't think I am making my self very clear. I think it is a great challenge, and I know what it takes to do so. However, as Novash says - a reason: "that was faster", "couldn't find a good one in this language", "friendly enough", that seems to be missing. It was there long time ago when they started (for those of you who remember), but today everything shifted. I don't go building theories anymore on the statement that the world is flat? So stop attacking me because I gave an opposing opinion and suggestion for improvement. It is great what they do, but I am sure like any other programmer, they too would like their code and idea used, not forgotten. This was not about productivity or stupidity of projects, so reread my comments before you burst. I also do stuff all the time just to see if it can be done. Don't all of us? But again, "if it can be done" solves a problem. Redoing same things just because, now that's something worth discussing.
- apotheon 17y agoThat's not just a GUI -- it looks like it supports alpha transparency. That's certainly more than I expected out of a floppy disk.
- mhd 17y agoWell, I assume they're usiing straight-forward, direct-to-memory framebuffer manipulation. No X protocol to get in the way, no unavailable GPU drivers. Simple alpha transparency shouldn't be hard to do. When did Porter and Duff write their paper, '83?
- kabdib 17y agoYou can do a heck of a lot in 1.44MB. The original Mac had a complete GUI plus some applications running from a 400K floppy, plus a 64K ROM. People forget.
- vidarh 17y agoAdding alpha transparency for a framebuffer based GUI need not take more than a few hundred bytes.
- apotheon 17y agoA few hundred bytes is precious space on a floppy.
- cubicle67 17y agoCool, but can I run Erlang on it?
- Sapient 17y agoReading the changelog belies the complexity of that project... I would dearly love to have the time to take a look at the code for it. Well done!
- kragen 17y agoIs this belie definition 2, "To tell lies about, esp. to calumniate by false statements", definition 4, "To give a false representation or account of, to misrepresent; to present in a false character", definition 6, "To call (a thing) false practically, to treat it as false by speaking or acting at variance with it; to be false or faithless to", or definition 7, "To show to be false, prove false or mistaken; to falsify (expectations, etc.)"? I don't see how any of those makes sense, given that it's an action by some person being said to belie an attribute of something. (Maybe that would make sense if you were one of the developers and reading the changelog demonstrated that the project's complexity were somehow "false"?) (OED 1ed. vol. 1 p.782, 806 of 1270 in the PDF)
- gdp 17y ago"belie" can also just mean "to be in contradiction with". Which I assume was the definition being used. As in, "the simplicity of the changelog is in contradiction with the actual complexity of the project".
- Sapient 17y agoThanks for that, yes that is indeed the way I am using the word. A bit old-school perhaps...
- julsonl 17y agoIn that case, definition 4 should fit the bill. Reading the changelog gives a "false representation" on the complexity of the project.
- kragen 17y agoAll of these senses have the meaning, loosely, "to be in contradiction with"; my confusion was how any particular one of them applied, and which one. In a way, senses 4 and 7 are opposites: in one case it's the belier that's false, and in the other sense it's the thing belied.
- zokier 17y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KolibriOS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KolibriOS deserves a mention too, GPL fork of MenuetOS.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- hyperbovine 17y agoWhat's a floppy?
- profquail 17y agoSomething that's not to be copied, IIRC.
- gcopenhaver 17y agoD-D-Do-Do-Don't...Don't copy.. Don't copy that floppy!
- Pistos2 17y agoI have to admit, that's some of the friendliest looking assembly source code I've seen. http://www.menuetos.net/e64.asm http://www.menuetos.net/e64.asm Granted, I haven't looked at assembly in over 15 years...
- Locke1689 17y agoDecent -- nothing special (if you consider decent as being good code written by smart people). FASM was an interesting choice and I'd like to see their justification for that.
- firefoxman1 17y agoWow it's improved since I tried it about a year ago
- jrockway 17y agoSo basically UNIX, except not 40 years old.
- hexley 17y agoSo does having all the labels in UPPERCASE save that much space?
- Novash 17y agoAmazing. The hardest part probably was to find a floppy drive to read / write the floppy. I don't think I have installed one on my last 2 rigs.
- eleitl 17y agoI would rather see a hand-optimized version of L4, packaged with a kernel for Debian. Or an OS written in Forth.
- Kw2987 17y ago"ForthOS is a complete, standalone operating system for the PC. It includes command line, compiler, debugger, editor, and filesystem." http://www.forthos.org/ http://www.forthos.org/
- krying_krab 17y agoImplement a Forth on the OS. If the rest of the OS is in ASM anyway, you can do high-level work in Forth.
- kragen 17y agoEugen, I have a copy of F-83 if you want it.
- eleitl 17y agoThanks, I used to hack Forth a bit back in my Amiga days. I still have my Novix 4000 board I bought used somewhere.
- srwh 17y agoI remember similar projects many years ago: - QNX - SqueakOS - SqueakNOS
- kragen 17y agoLinux, ColorForth, GEM, Kontiki, Oberon, the Macintosh System, Microsoft Standalone BASIC, Microsoft Windows, etcetcetc.
- zokier 17y agoI think this kind of projects are good reminders that modern computers have incredible amounts of processing power and storage capacity. If only all that power could be harnessed efficiently.... I also think that legacy cruft is hindering development in computers. One reason why (GNU/)Linux was able to advance so quickly was that it had much less legacy than other systems, allowing more freedom for developers to do stuff better way.
- krying_krab 17y agoWhich one is more active, KolibriOS or MenuetOS?