creating operating system

[moxing2]

ok guys, ive got a tough one for you. Im trying to figure out what to do for a senior project. it has to be somthing i dont no much about and will have to do a lot of research about. i have also decided to do somthing on the lines of computers, and decided on tring to create my own operating system. anyone have any experiance on this. I know absolutely nothing about how to go about doing this. what will i need to learn to make this possible?

Thanks.

[Stuey]

I vaguely remember that a little while back someone else asked about where to learn how to develop his own operating system. Developing an OS would most likely be way too ambitious of a task for you to complete in a limited amount of time all by yourself. In my honest opinion, it probably wouldn't be feasible given your limited amount of time (~ 1 yr?) and resources.

Is your senior project limited to computers only? Is it a college senior project, or a HS senior project?

[alfie2]

stuey,
you must be confused with GUI(Graphical User Interface)and Applications with the true OS,
which is more or less the kernel+system utilities.
basic operating system does the following:
task scheduling [multitasking/task swapping]
memory management [(de)allocating memory]
controlling input and output devices (thru device drivers usually):
user interface
disk access [managing files]
access to hardware devices[kb, mouse, printer].

I must admit though, to create an OS, one must KNOW the ASSEMBLY Language of the targeting hardware[CPU] very well, in order to write an OS.

[edfair]

With the right choice of hardware and the proper decisions about what to implement it could be an interesting project.
You might want to consider using one of the small single board computers as the hardware platform and do a minimum OS for command line control using something like a WD1002-05 SASI board for disk access (provided you can find one).

[Josh1964]

Reading about the developement of Minix, Linux, and QNX would be a good way to start.

[moxing2]

this is actually my high school senior project. It doesnt have to be withh computers but its aninterest and hobby of mine... so why not. This is actually my JR. year since i figured this would possibly be complicated, i decided to get ahead of the game. u said i need to know the "language", what is that bionary? could i possibly get a book on this?also if i cant do this, anyone have somthing challanging that i could do for my project? i would like to do somthing unique and creative.

[ghost2003]

Look at LFS. Its a big document on how to build your own linux distribution.
You dont need to know assembly to write an OS from scratch... Many systems are writen in C. C was originally invented to write the unix system in the first place. But you do need to know what you are doing...a LOT. And not to menthion time.

[alfie2]

Originally Posted by moxing2 this is actually my high school senior project. It doesnt have to be withh computers but its aninterest and hobby of mine... so why not. This is actually my JR. year since i figured this would possibly be complicated, i decided to get ahead of the game. u said i need to know the "language", what is that bionary? could i possibly get a book on this?also if i cant do this, anyone have somthing challanging that i could do for my project? i would like to do somthing unique and creative.

"language" is assembly not binary.
assembly is one step up from the original computer programming language which was hexadecimal coding[ 16 numbers 0-9, A-F].
you can see error messages even from WinXp containing hexadecimal code. [ie: error on 000x0373A001....]
hexadecimal coding is most primitive form of programming.
assembly has a slightly more readable code for humans.
[ie: MOV for move, JMP for jump, BR for branch....so on]
but we do not need to use all Assembly on most hardwares[cpu] nowadays. Instead, we use C, mixed with some Assembly code to write an OS, so you must know quit a bit of the Assembly language of the cpu you are going use, in order to program it.

Assembly language compilers for INTEL x86 CPUs are made by either Microsoft( MASM) or Borland (TASM); there are others. if you want to do INTEL CPU then read books on either MASM or TASM. IN fact, you can found a lot of material on the NET.

[RayH]

That's what Linus Torvald did.