2 ms·

I really like the "modern, souped-up, multi-tasking, cross between DOS and a Commodore 64" vision for TempleOS. The OS also has some innovative design choices

by blt 12y ago

I really like the "modern, souped-up, multi-tasking, cross between DOS and a Commodore 64" vision for TempleOS. The OS also has some innovative design choices like using the C compiler as the shell and compiling most programs on the fly. It reminds me of Lisp Machines in a way. A different vision of what computing could be like if closed-source binary-distributed software didn't exist. I wish the source code (http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineRep.html http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineRep.html) were easier to read though. It's very dense with a lot of abbreviated variable names and no comments. It's the main reason why I haven't installed TempleOS yet, because of course I'd want to hack on it, and the code seems tough to learn.

tredontho 12y ago
He has a YouTube channel where he has some "5 Minute" code walkthroughs where he analyzes randomly selected code and its context, and tries to explain it. The few that I've watched had a fair amount of rambling, and since it's random, it's obviously not a structured overview... but still interesting. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdX4uJUwSFwiY3XBvu-F_-Q http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdX4uJUwSFwiY3XBvu-F_-Q
jpgvm 12y ago
It also uses physical memory, not virtual memory and no protection to prevent 'userspace' programs from modifying the kernel. I quote userspace as it doesn't technically have the same distinctions that you are used to. This has some interesting performance implications. Specifically there is no need for a traditional "kernel bypass" when you want to work with hardware from userspace. For instance in Linux we have stacks like the Infiniband networking stack and some userspace TCP stacks (usually based on PF_RING) that are quite a hack to build in Linux that would be "just the way it is" in TempleOS. (though it's worth mentioning that TempleOS has not networking capability, apparently Gods decision) These sorts of operating systems were common before multi-user computing but died out because of the need to protect the operating system from it's users and the applications they may want to run. However the world is coming full circle again. Unikernels are back, sometimes they are written in C, sometimes in OCaml (MirageOS), sometimes in Erlang (ZergVM or something I think). TempleOS may actually provide insights for how to do these sorts of things as it's been built this way for a long time which can't be said of many other modern operating systems. Alas, people would probably need to see past the somewhat spiky exterior (Terry himself) to appreciate his work.

by blt 12y ago

tredontho 12y ago

He has a YouTube channel where he has some "5 Minute" code walkthroughs where he analyzes randomly selected code and its context, and tries to explain it. The few that I've watched had a fair amount of rambling, and since it's random, it's obviously not a structured overview... but still interesting. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdX4uJUwSFwiY3XBvu-F_-Q http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdX4uJUwSFwiY3XBvu-F_-Q

jpgvm 12y ago

It also uses physical memory, not virtual memory and no protection to prevent 'userspace' programs from modifying the kernel. I quote userspace as it doesn't technically have the same distinctions that you are used to. This has some interesting performance implications. Specifically there is no need for a traditional "kernel bypass" when you want to work with hardware from userspace. For instance in Linux we have stacks like the Infiniband networking stack and some userspace TCP stacks (usually based on PF_RING) that are quite a hack to build in Linux that would be "just the way it is" in TempleOS. (though it's worth mentioning that TempleOS has not networking capability, apparently Gods decision) These sorts of operating systems were common before multi-user computing but died out because of the need to protect the operating system from it's users and the applications they may want to run. However the world is coming full circle again. Unikernels are back, sometimes they are written in C, sometimes in OCaml (MirageOS), sometimes in Erlang (ZergVM or something I think). TempleOS may actually provide insights for how to do these sorts of things as it's been built this way for a long time which can't be said of many other modern operating systems. Alas, people would probably need to see past the somewhat spiky exterior (Terry himself) to appreciate his work.