GUI

[Programmer]

Hello,
Can I develope my OS using MS C++ or MS VC++ ?
How to create a good user interface and work with mouse ?

[Frki]

I'm not quite sure, but I think NOT. I also heard of some project of making an OS in Visual Basic, but I never heard that they succeded ???

So, you'll have to stick to the "usual" C/C++

[kataklinger]

Look at SANOS. It is written with MSVC++

[Brian_Provinciano]

I'm not quite sure, but I think NOT. I also heard of some project of making an OS in Visual Basic, but I never heard that they succeded ???

So, you'll have to stick to the "usual" C/C++

How could someone create an "OS" in VB? The original VB used bytecode, not machine code. Second, even though the original version one had a DOS version, the new ones are also Windows specific. A GUI--maybe, not an OS.

[Pype.Clicker]

programming an OS in VB is an urban legend. No basic i know, even the one that can be compiled, can be used to program an OS ...

[Schol-R-LEA]

It is possible to use MS C++ to cross-compile an OS, and from what Kataklinger says, it seems that VC++ will, too. However, as always, you need to write all of the libraries over from scratch to work with your OS, and in the case of VC++, you cannot use the form-building tools.

Frankly, it seems more trouble than it is worth to me. You won't be able to use those compilers on your new OS unless you include very comprehensive DOS and/or Windows emulation. If you then port a different compiler, like gcc, you'll have to cope with incompatibilities between the different implementations of the language, the object code, the linkers, etc. It would be better to choose a compiler you know you can port with minimal effort to you new system, otherwise you'll be forever tied to Windows as your development platform.

Of course, you may intend to write your own compiler, in which case my advice is, write the compiler first, making sure to separate the parsing and semantic analysis from the code generation, and test it in your development environment (Windows, presumably) before modifying the code generator to work with you chosen OS design. Writing a compiler is a task of equal complexity to writing an OS, even with parser generators and other modern tools. You would definitely want to have the compiler finished and well-tested before trying to use it for any systems programming.

As for the user interface, well, how you design your OS is your choice, but generally speaking the user interface is the last art one implements. That doesn't mean that you can't have a GUI design planned from the start, but rather that most of the other components need to be written, debugged and integrated before the system can support a GUI.

[darklife]

programming an OS in VB is an urban legend. No basic i know, even the one that can be compiled, can be used to program an OS ...

I've used many BASIC compilers in the past and there are a few that can compile true binaries with no red tape. Basm (BASIC Assembler) seems almost good for systems programming. QB is worthless for systems programming :p VB=of cource not. Since BASIC is nothing more than a language syntax, there is always the chance that there is a compiler that will produce code like C.
Anywho, I am currently almost finished with a ver1.0 compiler much like BASIC nicknamed Grape. I hope to code some parts of my OS in it. It compiles to NASM but I can always add an internal assembler.
I'd have to search Google but I know there is at least three good BASIC compilers that can produce systems software like OS's.