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Any modern single task/ single user OSes out there?

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 7:43 am
by xlar54
Despite the obvious question of "why", was just wondering if these still exist (for x86). Small hobby projects, etc?

Re: Any modern single task/ single user OSes out there?

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 7:53 am
by sortie
The fact that it is single-task/single-user would mean that it's not modern. If you are looking for something embedded or specialized, you are not really looking for "modern", but rather for something that satisfies your particular needs.

Re: Any modern single task/ single user OSes out there?

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 9:02 am
by Jezze
*cough* my signature *cough*

Re: Any modern single task/ single user OSes out there?

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:24 pm
by bwat
sortie wrote:The fact that it is single-task/single-user would mean that it's not modern.
Whilst the single tasking OS is as old as the digital computer itself, the OS designed for a single user is relatively recent - early 1970s (*). The multiuser OS is older (post job shop systems with batch processing using user priorities).
sortie wrote: If you are looking for something embedded or specialized, you are not really looking for "modern", but rather for something that satisfies your particular needs.
Why do applications in the embedded or specialised domain preclude modernity?

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(*) My guess was the Alto and I did a quick google and Wikipedia seems to agree with me on the Alto is the first personal computer. Anybody think any differently?

Re: Any modern single task/ single user OSes out there?

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 2:27 pm
by iansjack

Re: Any modern single task/ single user OSes out there?

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 2:44 pm
by bwat
iansjack wrote:http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml
From that list, it looks like OS/8 on a PDP-8 could be the first single user OS which would be mid to late 1960s.

Re: Any modern single task/ single user OSes out there?

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 11:40 pm
by xlar54
Thank you all. I will look into fudge this weekend. And the link to blinkelights was interesting. I was thinking something along the lines of FreeDOS 32 (32 bit port of Freedos). I dont know if its open source. But I guess the definition of "modern" needs some fine tuning. Perhaps my definition is something that will run on 32 bit x86 hardware, using all available RAM as a contiguous space.