Why do you write a kernel?

[hgoel]

I wanted to test the extents of my sanity. Turns out, the extent is pretty short

[NunoLava1998]

don't you know
you can obviously not write a kernel and instead write a memory manager OS in Word, or the Windows language.

making fun of people that have a lot of knowledge about computers.

[Schol-R-LEA]

don't you know you can obviously not write a kernel and instead write a memory manager OS in Word, or the Windows language.

I know those words, but that sentence makes no sense.

making fun of people that have a lot of knowledge about computers.

Oh, I get it now! You're telling us you really are a troll after all! Huh, I guess I owe iansjack five bucks...

[Octocontrabass]

Huh, I guess I owe iansjack five bucks...

Either you edited this really quickly or I'm going nuts. (Well, I might be going nuts either way.)

[Schol-R-LEA]

Huh, I guess I owe iansjack five bucks...

Either you edited this really quickly or I'm going nuts. (Well, I might be going nuts either way.)

Yeah, I realized almost as soon as I posted it that it was Iansjack and Boris who were accusing Numa-Numa of being a troll, not you. In fact, I don't think you've replied to Nano-Larva at all so far, which shows better restraint than some of us, including myself.

[NunoLava1998]

don't you know you can obviously not write a kernel and instead write a memory manager OS in Word, or the Windows language.

I know those words, but that sentence makes no sense.

making fun of people that have a lot of knowledge about computers.

Oh, I get it now! You're telling us you really are a troll after all! Huh, I guess I owe iansjack five bucks...

I'm just very humorous. I was being sarcastic there. I'm serious now.

[onlyonemac]

with the utter lack of foresight typical of someone in their late teens, decided "I can do better than this". It took me another ten years before I could find even a small part of the information I would need, and by the early 2000s my interest had shifted towards more experimental ideas, while I had matured enough that I realized just how ridiculous my teenaged ambitions really were.

teenager + geek = osdev noob

Wow, you learn something interesting every day.

[Brendan]

Hi,

I want to know how did the thought arise in your heart that you should write an os kernel ?

I switched from a Commodore 64 (1 MHz CPU, 64 KiB of RAM) to a 80486 (66 MHz CPU, 8 MiB of RAM) and expected it to be awesome because it was about 100 times more powerful (and very expensive at the time). I was disappointed.

I decided the problem had to be software - more specifically, I decided most of the problem was MS-DOS and Windows 3.1.

I was experienced with 6502 assembly, and decided to learn 80x86 assembly and have a go at fixing the software problem. I headed off to the local library in search of books and borrowed what I could (which wasn't much). None of the books even mentioned protected mode.

A few years later, the Internet changed everything. For my humble OS project (a crude single-tasking real mode thing that barely worked), access to information led to scope creep. As I gained knowledge and experience it led to more scope creep. As newer technology came along (both software and hardware) it led to scope creep. Everything led to scope creep.

I wasn't just scope creep though. In the first decade or so I was mostly learning and doing it for fun, but after some early successes (nice working hobby systems) I started getting more ambitious about the project's intentions, and wondering what it would take to go beyond "nice working hobby systems". I started looking for ideas that could make it viable product, and caring about things like fault tolerance and security and future-proofing. I started trying to find/create reasons for people to (maybe, eventually, hopefully) switch from existing OSs to my OS one day. Another "nice working hobby system" just doesn't seem like progress after you've done your first few.


Cheers,

Brendan