486etc wrote:
I want to write an operating system for my vintage 486 computer.
It's nice to see I'm not the only one.
486etc wrote:
I read the OSDev wiki and got the simple hello world programs to work, but beyond that I am lost. Does anyone know of any good books from the time period that could maybe help me out?
Hold on. Are you trying to figure out which things you want your OS to do, or are you trying to figure out how to do those things on a 486?
If you're just trying to figure out which things you want your OS to do, don't limit yourself to books from the 90s. Your 486 is perfectly capable of handling scheduling, memory management, virtual filesystems, and all the other things modern OSes do. Any good OS book will teach those things in a way you'll be able to apply to your 486.
If you already know what you want to do and you're trying to do those things on a 486, you still shouldn't limit yourself to books from the 90s. You should definitely refer to period-appropriate reference manuals first, but it doesn't hurt to keep an eye on how things have changed over the past three decades - especially if you want to see your OS running on new PCs too.
AJ wrote:
It wouldn't be a bad plan to try to locate an old copy of the Intel Software Developer's manuals. They used to give them out to anyone who asked - I had a set which I've unfortunately disposed of, but eBay may be your friend here?
Someone has very kindly archived most versions of the SDM, along with a bunch of other documents. But for a 486, my first choice would be the 486 programmer's reference manual (which isn't in the previous archive -
bitsavers has two copies).