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Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

os8088.com

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Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#131

Post by cmrdporcupine »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #12

It's funny how virtually everyone on HN is using AI to write code and simultaneously dismisses all interesting new software as written by AI.

If you've built a large % of your personality and ego and self-worth around your ability to be a magic wizard with the machine and now it's seemingly easy to automate, how do you think that feels? Of course some people react this way. I encountered personalities of this type who decry IDEs, let alone agentic authoring. I had an asshole team lead at Google who used to smirk at people doing auto-import finding for Java or using e.g. rename refactorings, etc.

I can understand some of the viewpoint around LLMs. But I don't agree with it fully and just find it too useful to be able to get all the things I wanted to do for the last 30+ years done.

And I also think that some of the people who are threatened and angry and who have really deep systems level engineering skills and knowledge actually are in a unique position to benefit most from these tools as they will actually understand and intervene better and produce higher quality. Most of these "really neat vibe coded" projects stall at a certain point where the prompter no longer understands the beast they've created. People with deep knowledge and experience will hit that wall much later.

Anyways, I think we're at a juncture where what is worth caring about and focusing on in computers is going to have to have a radical overhaul. It's tough to separate the gatekeeping/elitism from genuine critique.

Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#132

Post by eukara »

garganzol wrote: post #107
LeoPanthera wrote: post #12

It's funny how virtually everyone on HN is using AI to write code and simultaneously dismisses all interesting new software as written by AI.

This is a psychological phenomenon going on right now in the world around AI: gaslight your competitors into doubt and disbelief, then win. I presume that there were similar movements during 1950-1980s who tried to gaslight the publics against using computers while using the computers to gain a competitive advantage over them.

the competitive advantage in the IBM XT economy

Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#133

Post by cmrdporcupine »

garganzol wrote: post #106

LLM writes a better ASM then a C compiler? From running the demo in the browser, it seems so performance-wise and size-wise, but the ultimate test should be performed on a real hardware that I have no direct access to. Anyone can validate the performance on a real PC of the era? If it's confirmed, LLMs may be one of the ways of creating highly optimizing compilers in the future.

I've built custom exotic architectures in Verilog with their own bespoke ISAs and weird assembler and found LLMs entirely competent at writing for them, and even building compilers to target it.

It's a weird world we live in now.

Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#134

Post by [deleted] »

userbinator wrote: post #100
lelanthran wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Author of the AI written os8088 OS here... I'm curious about your goal in purchasing this project. You don't get any peer recognition. You don't gain any special skill. You can't copyright it. You can't sell it. You can't use it for anything useful. You can't use it as a learning exercise. It can't really be built on. It can't serve as a tutorial for others to learn. You don't get the satisfaction of a job well don…

This is something that hasn't been done before, and now exists. Yes someone could spend immense amounts of time and effort, but clearly no one bothered to until AI made it easier. yet the complainers will always complain because they don't have anything better to do with their own time... "bugger off!" as they say.

[deleted]

Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#135

Post by spankibalt »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #122
jggonz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Author" of os8088 here. You're right, it's hand-prompted. Claude's Opus and Fable have done a really great job helping me and another contributor shape this operating system. It's been a really interesting way to learn about the different techniques that other operating systems have used to get the performance we saw in LisaOS, MacOS, Windows, GEOS, etc... performance at 640x480 on an XT class machine is tricky! Als…

Stop calling it "Mac-like" and the project will live longer

No, please keep on track. "Mac-like" is a perfect fit for the "Daddy, what's (a) computer/programming?" vibe crowd.

Even The Company itself thinks so, as evidenced by relevant advertisements of the not too distant past. :)

Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#136

Post by tom_ »

lelanthran wrote: post #99
jggonz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author of the AI written os8088 OS here... Thanks for sharing the promotional video for Visi On. It's cool to see how many different companies gave this a shot back in the 80s.

> Author of the AI written os8088 OS here... I'm curious about your goal in purchasing this project. You don't get any peer recognition. You don't gain any special skill. You can't copyright it. You can't sell it. You can't use it for anything useful. You can't use it as a learning exercise. It can't really be built on. It can't serve as a tutorial for others to learn. You don't get the satisfaction of a job well don…

The goal is just to have the thing exist, I expect. Perhaps you might wonder to yourself: in some alternate timeline, where things played out somewhat differently, could the crappy old IBM PC have been coaxed into running an OS that was massively better than what we actually got? I suppose that won't appeal to everybody, and I suppose the idea of having the code largely auto-generated won't appeal to everybody either, but I think there'll be a few people left, and, for them: here it is.

In practical terms it's so useless that there's no point having a person spend time creating it, but, with AI changing the tradeoffs, now you can just have it created for you.

Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#137

Post by jggonz »

tom_ wrote: post #136
lelanthran wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Author of the AI written os8088 OS here... I'm curious about your goal in purchasing this project. You don't get any peer recognition. You don't gain any special skill. You can't copyright it. You can't sell it. You can't use it for anything useful. You can't use it as a learning exercise. It can't really be built on. It can't serve as a tutorial for others to learn. You don't get the satisfaction of a job well don…

The goal is just to have the thing exist, I expect. Perhaps you might wonder to yourself: in some alternate timeline, where things played out somewhat differently, could the crappy old IBM PC have been coaxed into running an OS that was massively better than what we actually got? I suppose that won't appeal to everybody, and I suppose the idea of having the code largely auto-generated won't appeal to everybody either…

^ This... I am the "llm-driver"/"creator" for os8088 and my goal is this. Just to have some fun and make something useful for people (like me) that have dozens of old computers sitting in a room.

And...I do know how to write in assembly, VHDL, and higher level languages, but I also have a life, and I much rather have an LLM write out the assembly for a hobby like this one where I wanted something in 6 days, not 6 months.

Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#138

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

jggonz wrote: post #137
tom_ wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is just to have the thing exist, I expect. Perhaps you might wonder to yourself: in some alternate timeline, where things played out somewhat differently, could the crappy old IBM PC have been coaxed into running an OS that was massively better than what we actually got? I suppose that won't appeal to everybody, and I suppose the idea of having the code largely auto-generated won't appeal to everybody either…

^ This... I am the "llm-driver"/"creator" for os8088 and my goal is this. Just to have some fun and make something useful for people (like me) that have dozens of old computers sitting in a room. And...I do know how to write in assembly, VHDL, and higher level languages, but I also have a life, and I much rather have an LLM write out the assembly for a hobby like this one where I wanted something in 6 days, not 6 mon…

That’s all fine and I don’t think anyone can malign you for that.

What we take exception to is how your project’s landing-page misrepresents the project by saying it’s “hand-written”, for example, and lacks any clear up-front AI-use disclosure.

Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#139

Post by cmrdporcupine »

walrus01 wrote: post #52
wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kinda almost makes it sound like VisiOn introduced Gates to the GUI which is not true. They were already using and developing for Macintosh machines at Microsoft and had hired Charles Simonyi from PARC with his expertise in GUI systems before Comdex 1982. The story seems to be more that seeing VisiOn gave MS the nudge to get into action on the GUI due to a sense of competition/urgenbcy from VisiOn rather than le…

Stories about Xerox PARC aside, the Apple Lisa was released to the market at the end of January 1983, and I would be surprised if Microsoft wasn't big enough/rich enough at that point to acquire at least a couple of units from the very first batch to mess around with. Windows 1.0 RTM was November 1985.

The world of computers was much smaller then. Everyone motivated enough knew what everyone else was doing.

Re: Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

#140

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Neat. If I was doing this though, I'd have started from a real-at-the-time system like GEM (sources are GPL) and "finish" it. By which I mean, from my experiences with the Atari ST ... GEM was in many ways a half-done project. The vision of its original designers never fully realized. We got some of that done much much later on the Atari ST, but it was never cohesive.

If I were to unleash an LLM minion on it, I guess I'd be focusing on that direction.

But, it's all rather arbitrary. We can do anything now.

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