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Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

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Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#91

Post by Aldipower »

luke8086 wrote: post #79
Aldipower wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I built the floppy image now. dd'ed it on a floppy and powered my IBM PS/1 up. Despite some nasty sounds of the HDD bearings that went away after 30 seconds, the floppy does not boot on this machine. Just a black screen. 386SX-25 2MB RAM. Maybe 2MB RAM too less, but I thought at least something will happen. :-)

Even on 2MB, you should be able to at least see GRUB, which would tell you that it can't load the kernel. Does it go blank before that? This could mean an issue with either GRUB or the floppy.

Yes, it goes blank before GRUB and after 2MB count-up. I ruled out a defective floppy too. I suspect GRUB?

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#92

Post by luke8086 »

aktau wrote: post #87

I clicked around in the kernel section and the other commenters highlighting the simplicity weren't lying. It's beautiful in its simplicity. Seeing the screenshots I was kind of expecting this was a pre-emptive multi-tasking OS (forgetting what I read in the submission). Things that thus surprised me on a cursory look: - noticed krn_main() ends with `while (1);` [1]. I would've expected a "schedule" call or something…

Thanks, so glad people like the code! I keep looking for ways to make it simpler and more obvious.

> - noticed krn_main() ends with `while (1);` [1]. I would've expected a "schedule" call or something. I assume there's no real busy loop burning CPU, maybe it's never meant to reach this code?

Yeah, `gui_main()` takes over and is not supposed to return, so the code is unreachable. The loop is just an old idiom used in such places (e.g. [1]), though I've now replaced it with a comment and a call to `halt()` to better convey the intention.

> - I'm reminded of the "bare metal OS" when I see one of the apps call `krn_*` functions directly [2].

Yeah... but at least the kernel doesn't call the apps... which it could ;^)

[1] https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/sys/x86/x86...

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#93

Post by luke8086 »

Aldipower wrote: post #91
luke8086 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even on 2MB, you should be able to at least see GRUB, which would tell you that it can't load the kernel. Does it go blank before that? This could mean an issue with either GRUB or the floppy.

Yes, it goes blank before GRUB and after 2MB count-up. I ruled out a defective floppy too. I suspect GRUB?

Yep, possibly.

In case you have DOS installed on the hard drive, you can also use GRUB4DOS [1] - just put gentleos.elf on C:\, run grub.exe, then `kernel /gentleos.elf`. You may first need to comment out any upper memory managers from config.sys. A bit of an academic exercise since the kernel still won't fit into memory.

Btw. feel free to reach out to me on my profile email. I'll be busy with work for the rest of the week, but later I may look for some workarounds to get it running on 2 megs.

[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos/

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#95

Post by oso2k »

lproven wrote: post #66
sixothree wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code is cleaner that what I was expecting from a C repo. Also, it's quite a feat to fit this into 4 MB on a 386.

> it's quite a feat to fit this into 4 MB on a 386. I had 2 different Librex 386SX laptops, with 4MB of RAM, on long-term loan from work around 1992. One was quite chunky, the 2nd was a slimline thing with an off-centre hinge. I ran OS/2 2.0 on them both. So I could run multiple DOS apps, and a WinOS2 VM containing Windows 3.0, meaning I could run Win16 apps as well. And native OS/2 apps, although I didn't have many.…

I have one those Librex as well. It was fun to play with when it came into my hands back in 1997.

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#98

Post by II2II »

sixothree wrote: post #88
lproven wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's quite a feat to fit this into 4 MB on a 386. I had 2 different Librex 386SX laptops, with 4MB of RAM, on long-term loan from work around 1992. One was quite chunky, the 2nd was a slimline thing with an off-centre hinge. I ran OS/2 2.0 on them both. So I could run multiple DOS apps, and a WinOS2 VM containing Windows 3.0, meaning I could run Win16 apps as well. And native OS/2 apps, although I didn't have many.…

For you to downvote my small comment, and then go on to lecture me about things you have barely any grasp or memory of, is just astounding to me. I currently own at least 5 computers with 4 MB of RAM, part of a collection of computers that is too large to count (hence the project on github). A 386 with 4MB was the bare minimum to run Windows 3.11, which is considered the first mainstream GUI for PCs. Technically they…

Different people are going to have different experiences, based on what they had and what they used it for.

If you've ever used a 68000 based Macintosh, you were limited to 4 MB RAM and 1 MB seems to have been more typical. It's in a different league to be sure, black and white graphics and multitasking was optional prior to System 7 (and I don't think multitasking was shipped with the System Software until System 6). That removes a lot of the pressure on memory. On the other hand, you had early Amigas supporting both colour and multitasking. The 1000 shipped with 256 kB RAM and 256 kB ROM (though I think 512 MB RAM was more typical). For an Apples to Apples comparison, the original Macintosh had 128 kB RAM and 64 kB ROM.

Windows 3.x and OS/2 2.x were later in the game, so they were designed for systems with more RAM. They also supported virtual memory. That meant there was less pressure on developers to write memory efficient code. I'm not really qualified to judge realistic memory requirements for OS/2 since I only used Warp on a system with 16 MB RAM, but I recall many people using Windows 95 on systems with 4 MB RAM. The requirements for both operating systems were similar. It's also worth noting that Windows 3.11 was rather late in the game. The system requirements were climbing rather quickly at that point.

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#99

Post by marssaxman »

II2II wrote: post #98
sixothree wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you to downvote my small comment, and then go on to lecture me about things you have barely any grasp or memory of, is just astounding to me. I currently own at least 5 computers with 4 MB of RAM, part of a collection of computers that is too large to count (hence the project on github). A 386 with 4MB was the bare minimum to run Windows 3.11, which is considered the first mainstream GUI for PCs. Technically they…

Different people are going to have different experiences, based on what they had and what they used it for. If you've ever used a 68000 based Macintosh, you were limited to 4 MB RAM and 1 MB seems to have been more typical. It's in a different league to be sure, black and white graphics and multitasking was optional prior to System 7 (and I don't think multitasking was shipped with the System Software until System 6)…

The "MultiFinder" extension allowing cooperative multitasking was actually included with "System Software 5", but I don't think I used it myself until System 6.

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#100

Post by hnlmorg »

rob74 wrote: post #49
hnlmorg wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst that’s definitely old in computer terms, even “retro”, is it old enough to be “vintage”? Personally I’d have said it isn’t. But these terms are subjective.

"Vintage" usually refers to actually old stuff, while "retro" refers to new stuff that looks/sounds/feels like old stuff. So GentleOS is a retro OS designed to run on vintage hardware. (That distinction wasn't clear to me either, so I had to look it up - TIL).

That’s not true in computer terminology. “Retro” has a long history (“vintage” you might say haha) of referring to old hardware and software.

Just type the word “retro” into YouTube (for example) and you’ll see thousands of videos from hundreds of channels spanning decades talking about old games and computers.

Eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro_gaming

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