ZoftOS Homepage

Hello, This message board is working now! Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions here! Thank you. Ben Hsu

www.vinuxos.com

Greetings, I forgot to mention anywhere with regard to the basic requirements of developing or at least seeing this system. These are the requirements: Machine : any i386 or better machine For developers: 1.) nasm 2.) djgpp\'s gcc, installed with linux 3.) partcopy, use dd if on linux 4.) bochs, if you want to emulate the OS on your develop platform For checkout\'ers: 1.) only need a floppy and partcopy 2.) or use dd if on linux 3.) or use of bochs to emulate the \'my.img\' file Basically, that\'s it for now...a protected mode kernel is being implemented, hopefully it can come out quickly so that other I/O functions can be defined. Ben Hsu

I just discovered a problem with the board, all the quotation marks are not processed and all the super long lines are not wrapped, will fit it! Ben Hsu

I finish writing the A20 gate initiailization code this morning and hopefully I can have the pmode initialization implemented sometime during the week in C. Future Plan: * Write system I/Os according to most C++ compiler standard. * Implement all working AP computer science class... * maybe define a unitasking shell in C++ Ben Hsu

Hello, I\'ve just made a CVS cleanup. Hope it looks better! Ben Hsu

I think the beginning looks nice. Borrow alot code from projects which allow borrowing, you can advance quickly that way. That\'s how everyone does it! - Jari

Hello, I\'m in a stress on physics and other stuff, so I kind of put off the project for a while, and when I came back to code, I found out about a major error in my decision of using GCC as my initializer...I need an assembly pmode jumper...so now begin to rewrite everything in assembly. Ben

Hello, I think many people have realized that this page is really badly designed...I\'m currently working on improving the structure. Some design bugs are obvious, and I\'ll try to pvent them on the next design. For IE people, you might not be able to see this forum correctly (for some weird reason the tables are unaligned). In any case, finals are coming, I\'ll probably be on task again some time around the next 2 weeks. I\'ve messed up another copy of my source codes, so I\'ll be starting again from scratch even though the CVS contains a farely good amount of code. Ben Hsu

Hey it\'s summer again...
I\'ll be working on this stie and the OS during this summer. It sounds awefully weird to debug this broad, I simply think it\'s messed up, and really want to rewrite one...with mysql if i can find out more info. But again, my focus is OS development, not some php tweaking, and as long as it works, this will be fine. So please use HTML tags to help you format your messages...and I probably won\'t care as much...

Anyways...need to work on the OS, later dudes!

Ben Hsu

The format is fainlly correct...
now is the time to work on the OS, i\'ve got a pretty good version going...this time all the way to the pmode switcher and the C kernel stub program -- it\'s call set, now i\'ll need to code a basic level I/O for Pmode processes and let it be loaded during boot time and then use the setup program to load it and link the write function to a gate then the I/O system is done -- raw I/O that is.
Ben Hsu

can anybody tell me where i can get it for windwows 2000? please tell me, toostuff@firemail.de

just download the bochs-1.4.win32-bin.zip package from bochs\'s project page: http://sf.net/projects/bochs, choose \'files\', and that package should contain the win32 executable of bochs.

Ben Hsu

How do you TEST your OS? I have heard of partioning and I know about it but I dont know how to do it!

there are several ways that you can test your OS: 1.) test it with a emulator - emulate it first as if on floppy - then emulate the image as a harddrive image - if everything works fine, then move onto the partition table (* note, better get an old/unwanted harddrive to test) 2.) then onto real floppy or harddrive * gather the information on the partition table (methinks Ralf Brown\'s interrupt table provides some source of information on the structures with INT 0x19). * decide on what to change with the partition table (then you proceed into implementation of the progam (best done with a image testing then onto the real thing). What the program should do: * change the partition table * setup the default file system strucuture according to design * copy the files unto that partition according to the filesystem (maybe take some OS functions out and just write an installation program) * if need multi-boot, maybe set it up with something like BootMagic or some other multiboot menu (you can write one if you want to), but i suggest using GRUB (easier). * and then just enjoy your own system! Ben Hsu

there are several ways that you can test your OS:
1. test it with a emulator
- emulate it first as if on floppy
- then emulate the image as a harddrive image
- if everything works fine, then move onto the partition table (* note, better get an old/unwanted harddrive to test)
2. then onto real floppy or harddrive
* gather the information on the partition table (methinks Ralf Brown\\'s interrupt table provides some source of information on the structures with INT 0x19).
* decide on what to change with the partition table (then you proceed into implementation of the progam (best done with a image testing then onto the real thing).

What the program should do:
* change the partition table
* setup the default file system strucuture according to design
* copy the files unto that partition according to the filesystem (maybe take some OS functions out and just write an installation program)
* if need multi-boot, maybe set it up with something like BootMagic or some other multiboot menu (you can write one if you want to), but i suggest using GRUB (easier).
* and then just enjoy your own system!

Ben Hsu

Yay! senior year starts for me!
well, i\'m taking lots of AP classes now...will be busy. but i won\'t stop developing my system (just slower). oh and i started some opengl engine in oop style the other day -- maybe try to make games (when i have some handling function fixed), plus have lots of comp sci things to do, so may delay this project inperiodically just like ere, but one thing reassured, it\'ll be updated during the winter until april (hehe, science fair time frame).
Ben Hsu

This is Ryan NIce page I am at school right now in web maastering class and i think that you have a really cool page Ryan

Since my project is in the same line i was wandering, are you using a GUI or planning to do so. If so i would be interested in cross-project work ( and hopes for the same from you ), since i don\'t think i have the skills to make a mouse-driver in <1 year. If interested, you can view the details of my project on http://sourceforge/projects/core-os .

Yeah, OS is alright, but the name is a little bit of a ripoff of my OS, Zot OS! What does Zoft stand for? It never says in your page. I linked here from OSdev.org (crappy site) your site is just ahead of mine in the stats. No hard feelings. -Jonathan Five

well, i came up with this name long ago, what i heard of a company called "SoftWorld", i dunno why i this it sounds nice to call my development project team ZoftDev, and since i\'m writing an OS, why not call it the ZoftOS?

i know, i haven\'t been working on my site or the project for a long time. since senior year, i got a lot more projects to work on. for instance, in apcs2, we had to simulate this blood-drive situation, and design a check-in/check-out/attendence report generating program, for 3000 something people. and that took out almost all of my free development time.
well, and now graduated, i\'m totally in need of vacation, therefore, no touching of the project at least until school begins or something like that. also, i started my project about 3 years ago, when i first moved to texas for my science fair project...and i\'ve had multiple occurances of running into trouble where my team is not here working with me...so being the lone gun man...i really can\'t make neat works....so my project is still not into anywhere...=)
i\'ve asked a few friends of mine just the past few month to help me to work on it once we settle down in college...hopefull there will be some changes =)

Hey I\'m interested in os design and implementation , I was looking for a small os project so I can learn from it. I hope you let me help out and give me cvs access regards Jonas Geiregat

hi i am fady i am working on os as final project could you sendme your advise >>