Thread: a simple OS

  1. #1
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    a simple OS

    I am thinking about starting work on a very simple OS because I want to learn a little more about how they work.

    Does anyone know any good sites on this topic?

    Also, a few questions:

    1. How would you go about telling the computer as it is booting up to execute your program, the OS.
    2. I assume Windows executables and Linux executables have different file formats (I have never studied the file format of executable files on any platform), so how would the computer know how to read your executable file and operate it, unless I am wrong and all executable files follow the same format no matter what OS. I assume the "file format" isnt really a format, and that the exe just contains an uncompressed listing of the hexidecimal codes that must be executed. Is that correct?
    3. Once the computer knows to execute your program at bootup as the OS, what steps must be taken to take control of the computer and what tasks must be done.

    Pretty simple questions. Obviously I know nothing about creating and OS.

    I have focused on game development for the past 6 years
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  3. #3
    I'm designing an OS, but it's mainly just for testing some ideas I have. The first thing I want to do with it is test my idea for an object orientated storage system instead of using a traditional file-system. I'm just going to try a bunch of crazy crap like that with it.

    http://www.osdev.org/ is where I started. Flashdaddee is awesome for stuff like this too. Practice your ASM stuff a bit and read a lot of stuff. That's what you'll be doing the whole time. It's fun, and I remember how cool I felt when I made my first boot system (2 stage, soon to be 3 stage).

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    Obsessed with C chrismiceli's Avatar
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  5. #5
    mustang benny bennyandthejets's Avatar
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    I went to OSDev and couldn't really find any actual tutorials. Does anyone know of a site where they actually show you how to write a simple OS, and maybe even provide some source code?
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    and the hat of int overfl Salem's Avatar
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  7. #7
    mustang benny bennyandthejets's Avatar
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    Looks good. Needs linux though, so I'm downloading Slackware as we speak. I've never used Linux before, I'm pretty excited.
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  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by bennyandthejets
    I went to OSDev and couldn't really find any actual tutorials. Does anyone know of a site where they actually show you how to write a simple OS, and maybe even provide some source code?
    I just go there for the links. Bona Fide is an excellent site on OS development. Follow the links and you'll have quite a few resources.

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