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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

#61

Post by jggonz »

incanus77 wrote: post #51

This looked great, I started reading things, and then I just kept reading and reading the voluminous description details, and it was an immediate indication to me that the whole thing was built up by Claude. Confirmed in the repo. I closed the tab. I appreciate the topic, interest, and ambition, but if a human couldn’t be bothered to create and document it, I can’t be bothered to spend my time reading about it.

"Author" of os8088 here. That's unfortunate. This is a hobby, and yes, it's all written with Claude. I have a bunch of videos up showing the process.

I'm updating the copy of the page to make it extremely clear that it's built using AI so that we can move past that point.

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

#62

Post by jggonz »

baud9600 wrote: post #38

This is great - It’s almost as impressive as the “GOS” written for Atari 8-bit running on 6502 at 1.79 MHz. Visually it’s almost identical but has a nicer font. The specs are somewhat similar with 16 task slots, calculator app and task manager, serial mouse support (ST mouse) and Atari’s hardware sprites helping with some of the graphics. The XOR window frame is the same idea. Amazingly, Atari GOS runs in 128K of RAM…

"Author" of os8088 here. I love seeing what these early limited system could do! Someone shared a video of GOS with me after seeing what os8088 looked like.

I believe os8088 also boots now with just 128k of RAM, but it's very limited in the type of apps you can load. There's a os8088.com/hardware page where one of the contributors to the project that has been helping optimize the operating system tested it out on a bunch of different machines.

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

#63

Post by jggonz »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #49

https://os8088.com/how-it-works/multitasking/ > Pre-emptive multitasking on an 8086 > Twelve task slots, 1,536 bytes of stack each, and a timer interrupt that takes the CPU away from whatever is running 18.2065 times a second. No task is asked to cooperate and no task can refuse. If you don't have protected mode, can't any program just rewrite the interrupt handler? It's not a bad system, but it sounds easy to break.

Yes, it's easy to break. There's no memory protection. However, building packages, drivers, and kernel modules for it has been a fun and educational exercise in memory management.

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

#65

Post by jggonz »

rickcarlino wrote: post #23

The website explicitly states a lack of networking. Any interest in pursuing that in a future version? I have a Pocket 8086 - I would love to give this a try next weekend.

We have built in driver support now, so we will be adding network driver support soon. We just added hard drive support that is potentially a bit buggy...

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

#66

Post by andai »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #24
vunderba wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the landing page: > 66,183 lines of hand-written real-mode assembly Goes to the github - contributers jggonz and CLAUDE. The README.md doubles down on this at the bottom with the license. > Everything here is hand-written; no third-party code is vendored into the OS, so the whole tree is covered by that one license. That's what happens when you let an LLM write your ad-copy...

It can't be written by LLM -- the human author has claimed copyright https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49203613

> there is no value in being a Public-Domain-Dumping-Ground.

First of all, isn't that the entire point of the Internet Archive? Sounds pretty valuable to me.

Second, doesn't the same issue effectively apply to everything written with the BSD or MIT license? I'm not sure I understand the point though, so I'm probably missing something.

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

#67

Post by jggonz »

drivers99 wrote: post #16
ozymandiax wrote: post #3

This rewrites what-could-have-been history a bit... better get my IBM XT/286 out of storage! Is this for real?

I might have to try it out. I have an 8088 IBM PC (my first computer) on a desk. I need to swap out some bad RAM (I've been getting Parity errors and other strange behavior), but it says it works with 256KB so I could remove the AST SixPakPlus altogether. The fully populated mother board has 256KB. (I could also unplug the MFM hard drive controller as well.) It supports CGA and VGA and I have both (the CGA is origina…

"Author" of os8088 here.

That's no longer the case. Someone that is contributing to the project is using real hardware to validate the changes. You can check out some of the systems he tested it with here: https://www.os8088.com/hardware

The system does currently run with 256KB of RAM, and you can use some of the basic apps, but not all of them.

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

#69

Post by Someone »

nxobject wrote: post #47
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And LLMs are still confidently bullshitting: > Everything after that is the interface you remember from a 1984 Macintosh: […] and a dock along the bottom with one tile per running program. In that case I look forward to seeing OS X’s Aqua ported to the IBM PS/2.

If we’re going to be really pedantic, there was no “System 1” as TFA says as well anyway - I don’t think there was an actual “version 1” of the System File version 1, and most of the routines at that point were in ROM. But an LLM would have caught that. Signs of a human touch?

> I don’t think there was an actual “version 1” of the System File version 1

There definitely was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_1:

“The Macintosh "System 1" is the first major release of the classic Mac OS operating system. It was developed for the Motorola 68000 microprocessor. System 1 was released on January 24, 1984, along with the Macintosh 128K, the first in the Macintosh family of personal computers. It received one update, "System 1.1" on December 29, 1984, before being succeeded by System 2”

That page doesn’t mention it but I think the original Mac shipped with a 0.97 or 0.98 version.

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

#70

Post by TheFuzzball »

jggonz wrote: post #60
Narishma wrote: post #7

> Hand-written real-mode 8086. No C, no linker, no runtime library. More like hand-prompted...

"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…

Did you ask Claude to write this comment too?
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