How long can take to make an OS ?

[OSDesign]

Somes tell it's impossible, somes say it will take 10 years, what about your opinion ? by making an OS I'm talking the basic, not graphics with beautiful design and suite of drivers like Windows. thanks

[St8ic]

I don't think that an OS is ever truely "done", as per se. A working version could take anywhere from three months to five years, depending on the experience and number of programmers working on it. It would also depend on the modivation of these programmers, and how much they work on it. A commercial OS made by paid programmers would take ALOT less time then a hobby-os of the same calibre.

Just my opinion, though

[ctgkum]

dos isnt that complicated
all you have to do is detect the keyboard, screen
plus some generic drivers for the graphics card (even bios can do that)
besides that you can handle full control to the current application
and let it choke with it
a sophisticated filesystem isnt necessary either
who needs all those files ?

if you succeed in the above example
you may then try to enhance it
by providing useless utilities like swapping (2G ram!!)
or multiuser support (=

[srg]

by providing useless utilities like swapping (2G ram!!)

But What if your os is designed to work on at least a 386 with 4mb RAM??

Actually I would recommend this, 386 4MB RAM and VGA video card, lowest common denominators.

[ASHLEY4]

dos isnt that complicated

Dos is very deceptive,It may seem simple,But no other OS has been as versitile,in so small a package.
Just look at freedos,they have been at it for 10 years and are noware near compatable.
And that can be said for the bios to (I would not like to have to program one).
I have the book "Dissecting Dos" and there is a lot more to dos than you would think.

ASHLEY4.

[bubach]

i have been on it for 6 months now, and i did just finish my "kernel loader" thats sets up the A20-gate and pmode..
But i started with a realmode comand line os...