This is a from-scratch operating system by LoseThOS, an absolutely brilliant but (allegedly) schizophrenic programmer who posts on HN but has been hellbanned countless times for the unintelligle religious rants and insults he posts.
This version looks like a rebranding of LoseThOS, the previous iteration of the operating system. It's worth Googling if you'd like more history.
Edit: After watching this video, I understand the SparrowOS name (audio required): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tuXweEJNFI
Look at his post from a little more than two years ago: http://i.imgur.com/qL01m.png
There are no insults in that post, instead you see a man who's created something wonderful and isn't getting anything back for it. Of course the icing on this cake is that, that very post was marked as dead... his cry for help was not seen or heard by anyone.
"The main reason TempleOS is simple and beautiful is because it's ring-0-only and identity-mapped. Linux wants to be a secure, multi-user mainframe. That's the vision for Linux. That's why it has file permissions. The vision for TempleOS is a modern, 64-bit Commodore 64. The C64 was a home computer mostly used for games. It trained my generation how to program. It was simple, open and hackable. It was not networked. The games were not multimedia works of art, but generated programmatically with innocent, programmer (non-artist) quality graphics. It was simple and unsecure. If you don't have malware and you don't have bugs, protection just slows things down and makes the code complicated."
But just out of curiosity, I downloaded the 24MB ISO from the website and loaded it up in a VMWare instance. It does boot...
It's an odd curses-like interface, with lots of blinking and scrolling. There are command-line looking things around, but all of the commands are kind of like C statements, like instead of 'cd ..' you have to do 'Cd("..");'. Really odd. There's a blue box that pops up possible completions, but it seems to have a whole dictionary in addition to commands.
Play with it if you have VMWare and you're bored, but I'd strongly recommend fully isolating it...
The language is fully documented too, see http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/HolyC.html.
The entire OS runs in a single memory space, so processes communicating with each other is as simple as writing to that processes memory space and telling to go execute.
All of the .z files you find in the source tree directories are a gzip like algorithm that on the fly in the OS automatically unzips them, and then compiles the code contained within.
The interesting thing is that while the programs are generally just in time compiled, the main startup programs can't be, however you can easily change the OS and re-run the compiler, overwrite the already started OS and continue on. The compiler CAN write binaries but it is not recommended by the author.
And I may have spent entirely too much time in this ;-).
The author may be a schizophrenic, what he has built is kinda neat.
He's said that networking isn't a goal of the project, as the OS is intended for gaming. So it doesn't have any way to connect to any network.
Oh, that explains very well what I was thinking about those bible cites..
For what it's worth, there is a far more interesting and respectful discussion from last fall on Metafilter: http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Son...
My favorite bit:
losethos:
I did a flight simulator but it looks awful, at best.
Boot it in VMWare. Get someone else to run it. It's
called "/LT/Demo/GameStarters/EagleDive.CPZ" It's an
eagle diving for fish. It's just a demo mostly. I often
show restraint in making my demos simple.
East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94:
bro i think you can be proud of the flight simulator
you wrote for the operating system you also wroteAs has been mentioned, this man has a disease that is causing him to act in a way that in almost every other way he probably wouldn't otherwise act were he to not have this disease.
There was a man several years ago who was convicted of attempted rape. He had no prior history of anything like this yet when he was incarcerated he was constantly propositioning the female officers. It cost him everything including his wife and family. And rightly so. Except, just before his sentencing he was diagnosed as having a brain tumor. When it was removed the predatory behavior ceased and he was a normal man again. Two years later the tumor returned and he started trying to force sex on every woman he saw.
Was he a rapist? Technically, had he succeeded in raping a woman, yes. Should he be imprisoned for it? Probably hospitalized actually but either way I'm sure you'd agree he should not be allowed back into society.
So instead of "respect" how about "compassion"? Can you have compassion for a man who is provably brilliant but also suffering from a debilitating mental illness that just may be the source of his racial slurs?
For me? This is unacceptable. Any technical project that is tied into religion is already, by definition, not for me. TempleOS and its weird language are already far off the scale of sanity.
Believe is something very personal and I never attack someone for that. Unless.. they try to spread it, claim that this madness is superior in some sort of way.
So - that guy here might have medical issues. That's really sad and I do believe that he's impressive as a programmer.
But this submission cannot judge the OS without the bag of insults and religious madness it includes. I'm close to invoke Godwin (hey, at least I'm German. Now that'd be new..) to convince you that "But that's a neat project" isn't good enough if the message, the whole idea behind that thing is totally, fatally flawed and unacceptable.
I'm not trying to insult the man behind the project. Still, the project itself is worthless and not even remotely interesting to me, _because_ of the man behind that project.
People start judging startups because of the CEO here everyday. We still have anti-MS zealots, that throw Bill Gates jokes around. This project isn't 'protected' from being considered inacceptable, just because the guy behind it has a medical condition.
I flagged the submission. I heavily disagree with your idea of appreciating a piece of work while ignoring the dangerous ideas and opinions the creator shouts out - even if no one _wants_ to listen.
By "appreciate it for what it is" it means you can appreciate it at 0 or even less, that's your prerogative. But we shouldn't be attacking this man. Judge the project for what it is, but the personal attacks against the man are unnecessary.
See the following thread of comments on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1aqdxn/temple_o...
This is essentially the equivalent of "outsider art" in the technology world.
Here's to the crazy ones.
First of all, a single day being equal to 32 bits - that's a nice touch right there.
Second, given the way most of the world reckons time (it is the year 2013, after all) seconds since Christ makes a lot more sense than seconds since 1970 ...
Do yourself a favor: Turn on showdead in options and browse a bunch of threads. You will see his markov chain generator going nuts, plus his rants.
He also believed his code was bulletproof and never needed changing/refactoring. He was a team culture killer.
You can partition the hard drive, real or virtual, with Parted Magic [3].
If the reason you want to go with real hardware is that something like VirtualBox doesn't feel transparent enough to you (i.e., there's a lot of magic that happens in the background when you configure it through the GUI) I'd suggest trying out QEMU first. It requires more manual configuration (you'll have to read the man page and find the right set of command line options to make it do what you want) but the end result is that you have a better understanding of the virtual hardware your guest OS is running on. Plus, the Cirrus graphics card it emulates by default is well supported by old software.
[1] One good option is to use http://www.supergrubdisk.org/super-grub2-disk/.
Actually, is there somewhere a list of all the weirdo OSes? I'd be interested to see that.
What does your OS look like? Screen shots http://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12087
Wiki list of projects http://wiki.osdev.org/Projects
I don't meant to only report on the ones at osdev.org, but from the osdev.org wiki you can find the other main osdev sites and find their project lists. If you approach this with the attitude of open exploration, I think you'll enjoy it more.
He is a great programmer, though, and his work shouldn't be discounted just because he's a bit off.
LoseThos is balls to the wall flat out crazy.
And this guy: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOS
And he may have another ID for all I know.
Can't anyone of the fine folks here help him with that?
edit: here is some background info for those who are not familiar with this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992749
People here do not realize this is what happens when your spirit gets crushed- the psyche regresses into a state where hope is the only thing left. That is where religion comes in, which is fundamentally the psyche's last grasp on reality by clinging onto hope in society. (Father, save me.)
The psychology involved is absolutely real, and the effects can be seen in any brainwashing victims who have had their will destroyed through deceit or betrayal. This is documented stuff- you can make someone schizophrenic. Ever been dumped by a girlfriend and felt "lost" for some time, losing some ability to reason? Congratulations, you have experienced damage to the psyche caused by emotional shock, otherwise known as "heartbreak." This is what religion is referring to through the metaphor of the "soul."
Furthermore, society has responded to this man's determination and faith in redemption, i.e. "God's Will." We're adjusting and slowly coming to accept his mental state and are beginning to appreciate the impressive effort put into his project. His faith is working, and in this we are both observing and are participating in the 'miracle' of faith, which is due to the emotional bonds that humans create.
We are pack animals like many others in nature, we create family units, and we are essentially structured just like the natural world around us despite what we like to think about ourselves- our conscious thoughts are produced by our subconscious, we're not in control, and we have no idea what the hell we're doing except chasing a vision of success. Success in what, exactly?
Religion is not what you think it is! It is not entirely pointless superstitious nonsense, it is an ancient way of describing the matters of the pull of emotion from the heart and the effects it has on the human psyche through abstractions and metaphor. It is very difficult to understand except through experience, because it's relying on a different state of the brain and attempting to describe feelings. People call it "wisdom" because that is the easiest explanation, since it is dealing with emotional states of the human mind that cannot be explained logically, only through abstract stories, warnings, and the like, same as Greek mythology (don't fly too close to the Sun). Thou shalt not steal, because the subconscious guilt may eventually damage your trust in yourself and you may be cast out from your peers. (i.e. the Kingdom of God.)
Likewise, Hell is a metaphor for what happens when you are lost in the world with a shattered psyche, with no social bonds to pull you back up. It is a terrifying fate, and it certainly happened thousands of years ago to men just as it happens today- where do you think the minds of the homeless pushing around shopping carts are? Modern psychology (at least some of it) is essentially a scientific explanation of the situations and consequences that the ancients described in the Bible.
It is not literal, nor did that have any meaning when it was written. It is the "Word of God" as again, a metaphor, describing the nature of human beings and their common behavioral patterns leading to predictable consequence. The Old Testament is essentially an ancient Almanac, containing metaphor about the creation and nature of the universe, orally passed down legends and tradition about the beginning of mankind, a history of the fate of various sects and tribes and family lines of man originating from Israel, and collections of poems, songs, and Confucian-like snippets of wisdom collected by kings.
The traditions, symbolism, culture, music, and weird mannerisms of the church (or any religion in any culture) are there for a reason. They are symbols that affect the subconscious and evoke emotion, the same way that subliminally seeing a fast food sign in your peripheral vision will make your stomach rumble, and the reason why all advertising works. Described in an ancient way, this is magic. It's real, and you're exposed to it every day in both positive and negative forms.
The "house of religion" where participants submit into a particular culture of tradition gives humans in various situations and walks of life something to bond together with, creating a social family unit i.e. "children of God, flock, congregation, etc." This feeling is subconsciously uncomfortable to the logical crowd like this one, which is compromised of young men driven by their very nature to break free of their parental family unit and create their own, while not realizing that is exactly what they are doing or where their ambition comes from. They are clinging to their confidence in themselves, and if that doesn't pan out, the only thing left to hold onto is hope in the compassion of your fellow man as a collective. It is sort of like a recursive self-deception where people place their faith in their own emotions (God's name is Jealousy) which actually works and helps people pull themselves back out. Hard to wrap your mind around the illogical!
Let's not disappoint the man. He deserves recognition, and it is in our very nature to give him a hand and pull him out of his rut. Perhaps he will even find a woman to bond with, set up a steeple above their heads in "holy matrimony," and become a King himself.
I don't think that's true.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Schizophrenia is a physical illness. Your brain physically deteriorates. You can't make anyone schizophrenic any more than you can make them lose an arm. In fact, making them lose an arm would be much easier than making them schizophrenic.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_schizophrenia
(Unfortunately it is difficult to sort through real information vs forum posts written by schizophrenics whose minds are attempting to blame imaginary targets because they cannot determine the real cause.)
I'm not exactly sure how that is achieved, as far as I know, in order to switch to long mode, you need to have enabled paging.
I've been myself looking to start my own OS (protected mode), but it will probably be a unix code. What this guy has done obviously deserves a lot of admiration.
an identity-mapping for virtual memory is then a mapping that directly translates a VA into the same PA, so VA 5 is PA 5.
the word 'paging' is overloaded to mean, to the cpu, the act of having the mmu perform translation from a physical to a virtual address, and, having the OS perform demand-loading of certain physical pages.
so non-identity mappings would happen when you switch a VA from mapping to a PA to mapping to nothing. the OS takes the contents of the PA and stores it on disk. the next time the VA is accessed, there is a 'page fault' and the data for the page is brought in to some other available PA and the VA is remapped to that PA (if the mapping exists in the stored pages on disk).
identity mappings are very simple because they remove the layer of indirection normally present in a virtual memory system. so you can run the processor in long mode, and use as much of the memory as you can address, but have none of the benefits of disk-paging, processes, separation, etc.
it's ironic because if you used processes, your system could be more performant, because your address space only contains the pages needed to run your particular task. if you run everything in r0, then you don't even need an OS. you sidestep a lot of the challenges in writing an OS at the expense of performance...
One minor version/2 months or so behind.