hi.
I also thought about programming my own OS,
but I don't think I'm good enough for that.

Here are some URLs about OS-Development:
http://users.erols.com/johnfine/
http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/sigops/roll_your_own/
http://magic.hurrah.com/~sabre/os/

Hope you find some useful informations there!

Philippo

[This message has been edited by Philippo (edited August 28, 1999).]

this message caused me laughing
sorry...if you'd like to get into system specific programming, help out in another project, like *BSD or linux.
_no one_ is good enough to write an OS himself.

Sengir

I've an idea of programming a new Operating System. If everything goes right then you can say goodbye to windows DirectX, DPMI and crashes.

There's just one catch.
I don't have an idea of how to program a new OS. If someone has information (or an URL) I would greatly appreciate it.

I already know ASM so that shouldn't be a problem.

Umm, okay.

Just a checklist, to make sure you can cover everything that an operating system requires:

A simple (!) operating system is required to:
* Run one or more processes simulaneously (MS-DOS v3 and below ran only one, but newer OSes multi-task)
* Provide a fair and efficient multi-tasking environment if multi-tasking is supported (Interactive tasks should be given higher priorities, etc)
* Manage memory for each task - a process should not have access to memory it doesn't own, but multiple processes should be able to share common code segments in memory.
* Manage I/O for each task - the OS provides the interface between the software and the hardware (Roughly speaking)
* File management - providing the correct file to a process when requested, and managing the file list as a whole to prevent fragmentation and the like.
* System security - a user should be able to access his/her files and resources but not those that are not shared and belong to other users. A system for auditing is also useful.

If you still feel up to it, the book 'Operating Systems (3rd Edition)', by W Stallings (Prentice Hall, 1995) is an exellent reference.

If you manage to work out a clean, efficient operating system that works, please let me know and I'll likely be among your customers.

Good luck,
White Fire