How hard would it be to write a program that runs independent of an operating system? Is there a special compiler? Would it need a bootloader like an OS needs? Thanks.
How hard would it be to write a program that runs independent of an operating system? Is there a special compiler? Would it need a bootloader like an OS needs? Thanks.
Extremely hard! Consider how many different pieces of hardware exist and you'll get the picture.
You have to deal with BIOS, which i'm not very accustomed with. I believe that in boot time, the BIOS load a special file of the OS and untill booting again, the OS takes control. ( That is not actually true, because any OS is just an interface to the BIOS ). I don't think that there is any way to handle BIOS after an OS boots.
Devoted my life to programming...
You will need MS-DOS and a computer it's designed to run on, current computers have an architecture that prohibits anything other than the kernel from accessing the hardware.
so, no, you cannot wipe the files of the other people using your computer that way
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Its difficult but there's loads of sites to help you. Try google OsDev for a start.
You need to get the right toolset (GCC is probably worth looking at to begin with), be comfortable with C and a little assembler. Then be prepared to do lots of reading. Soon you can start to write boot-loaders, memory managers, shells and disk drivers. Having an old test machine in place also helps, if you dont have one then look up bochs.
At one point in time lots of people were writing little boot-loaders on this site...those were the days!