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A monolithic operating system in 512 bytes of x86 machine code

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Re: A monolithic operating system in 512 bytes of x86 machine code

#2

Post by detrites »

Absolutely mad history here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20569438 (2019)

As a teaser, from the above:

> For those not aware of the background, the author is a wizard from a secretive underground society of wizards known as the Familia Toledo; he and his family (it is a family) have been designing and building their own computers (and ancillary equipment like reflow ovens) and writing their own operating systems and web browsers for some 40 years now.

Re: A monolithic operating system in 512 bytes of x86 machine code

#5

Post by actionfromafar »

detrites wrote: post #2

Absolutely mad history here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20569438 (2019) As a teaser, from the above: > For those not aware of the background, the author is a wizard from a secretive underground society of wizards known as the Familia Toledo; he and his family (it is a family) have been designing and building their own computers (and ancillary equipment like reflow ovens) and writing their own operating syst…

It's so incredible I can't digest it.

Re: A monolithic operating system in 512 bytes of x86 machine code

#6

Post by Arch-TK »

bmacho wrote: post #4

Why is it monolithic? Why not microkernel? Especially that all the typical jobs of an operating system are outsourced.

I think the infrastructure required for a microkernel would have more features than this OS. It really is incredibly barebones and that's why it is monolithic. That being said, I guess it's maybe possible.

Re: A monolithic operating system in 512 bytes of x86 machine code

#9

Post by oso2k »

bmacho wrote: post #4

Why is it monolithic? Why not microkernel? Especially that all the typical jobs of an operating system are outsourced.

Strictly speaking, a monolithic kernel is one which builds in all the code to operate: talk to hardware, load programs, perform its services or even include the ability to load drivers/code to talk to other hardware. All of the key functionality is loaded into the kernel program space but that is usually separate from user space or process space. Dumb programs; smart kernel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolithic_kernel

A microkernel has a much more limited scope, sometimes just the ability to pass messages or data between processes, and may exclude most of the functionality to talk to hardware. The microkernel program space is separated from user space, process space and driver space. Dumb kernel; smart programs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel

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