Writing an OS

I am continuesly sickened by the climing suck factor of Microsoft and the out-of-reach pricing of a "decent" laptop these days so I am going to try and write a "decent" OS of my own and build a "decent" hand-held of my own. I need to know these things

What is the best programing language for this task?

A)C++

B)Basic

C)Java

D)some other language

I was also wondering if I could get some sugestions on what I should try to integrate and what I can do to make it a Xtreamly small. I also want some beta testers and some people who can possible help write some of it. . . . . I wont actualy DISCUS the actualy CODE but I may throw a line or two in (you have to understand the risk of theft) for now I want to have a pretty basic OS.

LOL...goodluck....I forget how many million lines of code Windows is...and more than one person coded it. Are you in high school?

Writing it for a mobile phone could be done by one person but IMO it would be very hard and take a lot of time. For a computer forget it. You won't be the next Linus Torvalds, it takes some serious effert and understand of what writing an OS is about.

TBH it doesn't seem you don't understand the problem if your asking what language to use.

I agree, it certainly doesn't seem like you have any idea of what is involved in writing an OS.

If you had any idea, you'd know that there isn't any way to write an OS in Java or in BASIC since both of those languages are partially interpreted.

Your only option is a language and a compiler that can generate native binaries.

Furthermore, the vast majority of it would have to be in assembly code, which is targeted at whatever processor you are writing it for.

actualy I was thinking about writing it for my calculator. and a JAVA enabled phone would be able to run an OS writen in JAVA

The OS is what actually runs the Java. Java enabled phones have high level OS functions written in Java, however their base level OS functionality is not in Java, by definition. You cannot run Java outside some sort of OS that is already in place.

Java code is not natively compiled and therefore MUST run on a virtual machine.

well I dont know how to format a phone any way. . . . . . . I was pretty **** sure JAVA wouldnt work anyway so I was just checking. . . . . REGARDLESS I was just trying to right a very basic OS for my calculator, then I was going to build off of that.

where do you get compilers? I have started studying C++ and have used an old 1986 coco with BASIC, but i can't seem to find a good compiler. back in the day that BASIC was phat but after reading the first hundred pages of Visual BASIC.net and C++ i see that it is way inadequate. How do you get an assembler onto a computer that has no OS on it, just stick a disk in or somthing? Where do i find them?

You would start with a computer that does have an OS on it. You would do your programming and assembly coding on a functioning pc.

Then you would take the machine code you generated, and place that (automatically or by hand) into a special memory address on a floppy disk or the hard drive that the BIOS knows to automatically load upon boot, and then the assembly code takes it from there.

Before there were working PCs to do this with, the assembly code was all done by hand and loaded in via card readers.

"I like the way you shakin' dat OS, Baby..."

cowboyX said:

I am continuesly sickened by the climing suck factor of Microsoft and the out-of-reach pricing of a "decent" laptop these days so I am going to try and write a "decent" OS of my own and build a "decent" hand-held of my own. I need to know these things

What is the best programing language for this task?

A)C++

B)Basic

C)Java

D)some other language

Click to expand...

First off, I would like to say that this thread is awsome, second, Visual basic, Compiler 2.2, and Java aren't going to be right for the job if you're practically making your own PC. Those codes are always translated through the OS system files, and you can only make an OS with Java if you have a Sun Microsystems server with a SPARC architexture.

ASM (Assembly code) is designed to work directly with i386 CPU's and up. (so i've heard) So as long as you don't use any native windows messages, you should be able to do this.

Please tell us what kind of lil' build you're making and we'll tell you what programming you need to work with.