I used the first version of Linux that Linus put on the net, and was really early adopter of Minix 386 (remember the arguement between Tannebaum and Linus? Funny how that worked out.) Linux was much rougher then, but it was much more closer to an OS the V2OS. Linux has always had the layer of abstraction that allowed it to grow into what it was today. In fact I believe it is the fact that linux had some key features missing in Minix that made almost everyone switch development over.
V2OS is really a real time exec. Granted it looks like it has some very nice features, and a cleanly thought out design, but there are a lot of these out there. Plus, if I wanted a stripped RTE I'd want it to run on something smaller then a IA-32 (I've got one on a 6811 that I've used for years). Plus I can get Linux on a 68332 if I need a boomer of a microcontroller.
I'm missing what the target audience is supposed to be I guess. It seems to be sitting in the same place as some of QNX and Wind River's products, but it is a long way away from being as useful.
The lack of security is not a problem
by
talonyx
·
· Score: 2
Many people seem to assume every operating system needs security. Why? Not every device in the world is connected to the Internet, or even any other systems. That's why my old 486/25 with DOS 5 on it is still nice and fast. I don't need security to bog it down... nobody is going to try to crack it.
V2 is an elegant operating system. It provides some nice software interrupts, and becuase of its small size, could be great for embedded systems. Besides, as far as I know, you can program in C on it. It shouldn't be too hard to port over GCC, and from there many apps can be built...
It could also be an excellent boot-disk OS for demos. Demos, you know, those wicked multimedia presentations coded in ASM? Check out hornet.org for some great examples.
ASM has its place... and anybody who has looked at ASM code in a debugger and C compiled code in a debugger knows that human-written machine language is far simpler and faster.
I understand the idea of speed behind it, I admire that it is 100% assembler. What I don't quite get is why they claim 386+; this is implying that they don't use 486/586/686 instructions in the code? Why not make it at least 586 instructions?
Honestly, I wouldn't imagine that there would be much use for a 386 machine these days besides a print server or some other minimal task, and for that, you probably would use another operating system. In reality, by the time they get around to implementing the features for such things as routing, print serving, file serving, etc., the 786 would be out (partially joking here).
What I guess I'm trying to say is that the concept of it being a demo coding OS is just fine. But for practical applications, I can't quite see why. With this, why would someone be coding a demo to run on a 386? Should at least take advantage of some of the features of the 586 chip.
--
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Here is a link to the "Art of Assmbler":-) It's really a good read.
If you want to know *why* ASM is good, go to the homepage of the DGen/SDL project, a genesis emulator for Linux. It uses an ASM memcpy function (using either MMX or "native" mode) as well as an ASM 68k and Z80 CPU core. By doing this, it makes the emulator/much/ faster, and a lot more useable. I'm sure other famous emulators (like GeneCyst, etc) use ASM CPU cores at some point, as it's pretty hard to emulate well without. I'm not even going to go into the ASM wizardry John Carmack did for Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, etc:-) ---
-- -- Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
If you're interested in a cross-platform Unix-style shell implemented in Perl, take a look at psh (SourceForge). We can always use developers, testers, and technical writers. It's licensed like Perl (GPL and Artistic).
--
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
The problem with our aguement is that you assume that a good compiler cannot do the same optimizations that a human can. To some extent its true, but its balanced by a few things. 1. Code written in a high level language is easier to maintain and more likly than no has fewer bugs. 2. Not everyone is an expert ASM coder, it takes a lot of effort to become one. 3. If you aren't an expert ASM coder, then your code will be SLOWER than the compiler generated code. I don't mean a crappy ASM coder, even pretty good won't beat the latest compilers. If you look at a REAL optimizing compiler (Intel's is probably the best for x86, Visual C++'s is almost as good, GCC is probably a distant third, mabye fourth) you can see that most optimizations that ASM coders can do are built into the compiler. I am writing a graphics library, and it has some of the tightest algorithms and code you'll ever see. But compiling with full optimizations in Visual C++ sped it up by 3 times over non-optimized. These are line drawing and bezier curve drawing routines that are already tricked out to begin with. In addition the compiler has a lot of advantages over an ASM coder. It can keep track of machine state much better and can take advantage of shortcuts that would be to arcane for an ASM coder to notice. It can utilize special instruction sets, knows the speed of each instruction on different sets of data (ie. dec/jnz is faster on 386) So unless you are writing a very tiny routine, and have been studying ASM code for that particular proccessor (PPro, PII, etc.) for years, chances are that the compiler will kick your ass.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Calculator Programming and V2_OS
by
Microlith
·
· Score: 2
Unfortunately, I have used the HP48/49, and going from a ti-82 to a ti-89 was a lot less steep of a curve than it would be going to an HP48. Besides, the features in the TIs are similar, which makes converting the ti-82/83 instructions in my math class easier.
And for what I'm using them for (Algebra 2, Games), the TI-89 is more than enough (if not overkill). The HP would be more difficult than it's worth. BTW, prove it's better.
If I need more comp power then a 68HC11/12 or a 68332, then I'm going to have a good bit of memory (read over 2 MB). The 68HC11/12 was never designed as a computational platform (the 6502 and family was actually not a Motorola part and in no way related to 68xx family or 68K family). That's were you move up to the CORE32 family like the 68332. It can then address 1 MB on up to 16 MB (and more on ceratin versions). There are tons of OSs that run in that space, even Linux. Linux is also quite useful for embedded applications in that space.
The 386EX and other IA-32 embedded solutions are almost always implemented with a meg or more of memory. This could easily run LinuxRT, or one of the many other RTOSs. Plus the embedded IA-32 equipment is expensive by comparison to more traditional microcontrollers.
The Hubble and most of the other space applications are more involved in why they choose those CPUs. First, they have to be RAD hard. ULSI CPUs (pentium and above) aren't there yet. Second, power consumption plays a huge roll. Running a CPU that takes 9W standby is pricy in space. Third, the low voltage stuff doesn't work as well in those environments due to grounds and radiation. NASA chooses Intel over Motorola often (atleast the people I've worked with) because of development tools investment (pSOS, QNX, Wind River) that they have, and that all the boards are custom makes anyway, so the hardware requirements are that it only needs to be survivable in those environments.
As far as the GPL goes, they can probably do what the Tivo does, release it on a web page.
that's not the slashdot effect
by
Asparfame
·
· Score: 2
it's a V2 server.
--
There's no reason for a sig here.
Some places to get things:
by
Vadergar
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· Score: 2
you can go to: V2 Labs - The official V2 OS Page Dash - the first and only shell for v2 os The V2OS Project Manager - By JayTaph Nerdhero's v2os site - the home for the standard c lib as well as other stuff tRen's v2os site - extremely out of data (2 weeks!) V2 Demo Coder's site - if you are a demo coder go here! #v2os channel site - the page for #v2os on effnet... most of these places have either downloads of the source, etc. or links to another site with it!
Re:OpenSource is the answer
by
Vadergar
·
· Score: 2
The reason we (many of the coders for v2 os) wanted it open was not to be a linux wanabe.. It was not to get attention! It is nice that it is posted on slashdot, since that is where I found it (a few weeks ago), so others can find it.
The reason we wanted it open source is because we wanted to see what was happening inside so we could program for it better.
And as for your idea that slashdot caused this, I know that this is not the fact. It is because around a hundred programers have been working with v2 since it was released and we convinced them it the benifit would outweights the negatives.
So your theory that this was for slashdot or anything like that is totally off base...
Only a small number where interested? not really, we have had an active IRC channel and many developers for weeks. The developers said they were getting hundreds of emails a day inquiring about internal parts of the os! your complete argument is false! Many people have been working on V2 os for weeks before it was open sourced!
Modern C compilers typically generate code that is as fast or faster than what a person could do it really doesn't make sense.
Correction: Modern C compilers typically generate code that is as fast or faster than what a person who doesn't know assembly language could write. Modern C compilers never generate code that is as fast as an experienced assembly language coder would write, except in trivial, easy cases where what the programmer is trying to do is simple enough that the compiler can understand it. AI still being a distant gleem in researchers' eyes, compilers lack the necessary understanding of what the programmer is actually attempting to do that they need to be truly effective optimizers.
I've seen a lot of disassembled code since I first learned assembly 16 years ago. Once in a while, I've seen trivial bits of code translated as fast as possible. Mostly, I've seen code that I could have written faster in assembly. Never, not even once, have I seen code that was faster than I would have produced myself.
The critical weakness that prevents C code from ever being as fast as assembly language code is the fact that the compiler doesn't know what you're doing. If I write a program in assembly language from the start, it's not going to look or work like a C program written to do the same thing. Not surprisingly then, since the best a C compiler can do is translate your C code into assembly code, it won't be as fast. In order to be as fast, the compiler would need to examine your C program, understand what it's supposed to do, and then write essentially from scratch its own assembly code to do the same thing, paying no attention to how your C code went about it but simply to what the end result would be. At this point, you're not feeding the C compiler code, you're feeding it a specificiation for what a program should do given these inputs and outputs.
Once compilers are capable of doing that, you won't need to write C code to begin with. You'll be able to simply tell the compiler what you want and let it do all the coding. But until this becomes the way compilers work, it will not be possible for a compiler to generate code as small and as fast as an experienced assembly language programmer.
--
-- "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Does anybody else out there think it's ironic that "The FASTEST OS there is" has the slowest web site I've ever seen?
You can do ALOT in 37k!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
Not more than 3 feet away from me lies a working Apple//+ with 48kB of RAM. Outside of a couple pages for variable storage, Woz put an integer basic interpretter and the system monitor in 32 pages (8kB). And i'm told that Woz squezed a couple floating point math routines in there too just because there was space. So needless to say, i'm not impressed. Just because we're approaching normal gigabytes of RAM does not make it impossible to write tight code. In fact, it should be a goal to get your critcal code to fit in L1 cache! Interesting side note. For the Woz hand assembled his code because he couldn't afford the assembler. Tom
Is it just me, or is there a lot of hype over an OS that doesn't seem to be much more then a real time executive? It seems to get its speed more from not having any protection, or abstraction layer then being in asm. Having worked with stripped down OS's/Execs for years, I'll tell you its better to just add more machine. They have their place on smaller micros like the motorola 68xx and intel 8051 families, but not the IA-32 series.
Why on earth would anyone write an OS completely in ASM. Modern C compilers typically generate code that is as fast or faster than what a person could do it really doesn't make sense. Also, you get all the joys of maintaining it and portability is almost completely gone with very little in the way of speed gains. I know that asm in some places is needed or provides massive speed ups, but the entire OS is just a waste.
The site also seems somewhat limited on information. They say everything will be available from the download center.
I think you are certainly right with respect to code size optimizations.
I'd be interested in some profiling results on speed however. There are speed optimizations that compilers make that would be totally unmaintainable in asm, such as common subexpression elimination or reordering instructions for superscalar pipelining.
It may be very hard to tell how fast a snippet of code will run by eyeball, particularly in a largish loop.
-- Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, ASM in general isn't (IA-32... well, Intel screwed up. Learn something easier, say MIPS or 68K or HC11 or PPC or StrongARM).
Also, C compiler optimization is a limit of knowledge of the optimization programmers (i.e., how well do they know the architecture, and what language construct modifications can reduce the architecture instructions [taking advantage of instructions that do more than one thing at the same time {integer division often returns both the quotient and the remainder - save several hundred cycles by storing the remainder if its used later}]). While *in general* a C compiler can probably generate pretty good assembly, nothing does beat handcrafted ASM (with proper comments), rather than looking at the compiler output before assembly.
Likewise, from the Art of Assembly (book available online, don't have URL) by Randall Hyde, it's possible to create lousy assembly that runs slower than its C counterpart, but it's also possible to make asm much faster than a C compiler can ever generate. Plus, if you know the processor well, you can take advantage of architectural efficiencies (like helping branch prediction) by reordering asm code without having to look too convoluted. Additionally, you get some raw power that is difficult to do with C (bit twiddling is much easier with asm than C, plus, it's easy to initialize a large data memory allocation in asm to some specific value (initialize pointer. Write value using largest processor can do, using a post-increment addressing mode. Is value of pointer > end of data block [which can be of various types]? If so, end, else repeat). Of course, this has serious alignment issues.
Although I find it weird to write an OS in ASM, it must be cool stuff to read. And hey, if they can make a cool hack out of it, why not? I mean, our differences are what makes us evolve.
Moderators: Please mark this as low as possible even though it's Christmas and only thing I want want is some + karma.:~-( It's ok. I'm used to +1 and 0's even though I think my ccomments are usually good. I'm mean, c'mon, it's your job afterall. Just cause my self worth is at stake doesn't mean you shouldn't mark this message down... . . . . . . . . . . . .
This OS will be of no real use to a beowulf. It's lacking high bandwidth networking (bonding, fast NICs, etc...) and the virtualization needed to port PVM or MPI (the heart of any beowulf) to it. It's targetd more towards the embeded application. Media center is one thing that comes to mind. It should be good with MP3s or MPEGs due to the simple server architecture, but I don't know what the switching latency is so that may be all you can do on it at one time. Of course adding a little more hardware and you can do the same thing on a full OS.
Merry Christmas, and in defense of this operating system, I would like to say that we are creating a developers environment..... We are not looking towards creating the most portable or even something for regular users... The V2 Labs guys (who created this in the first place) created this with a goal of maximizing multimedia. This operating system boots in about 1 second. So you can eventually have this sucker being your mp3 player in your car, or anything else and guess what... It will boot in 1 second!
Why would anyone want to work with this? I work with it because there is a lot needed to make this a fully functional operating system. I don't know about most of you, but I wasn't able to help contribute to the base of any other operating system, and the experience for me is a good one. It may not turn out to be everything we want, but I am learning a lot about shells and operating systems.
Speaking of shells, if you want to get a shell for V2 OS, go to v2dash.hypermart.net It is up to version 0.007a (codename Golden Eye). It is open source, so if you want to help in the coding of a shell (unix style), now is a great opertunity..... Last of all Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukkah, and have a good day if you don't observe either of these holidays!
after running this "OS"I was very underwelmed, i command their effort, but am not impressed. it seems to me they are simply trying to be a linux wanabe by making open source. I also have a suspicion that the slashdot response is directly responsible for this.
they saw that only a small group of people we're interesting in a bairly functional OS if it was closed. this is another of many recant demonstrations that the Open Source Movement(tm) is effecting the world.
-Jon
-- this is my sig.
V2 is a _demo coder's OS_.
by
Martin+Ling
·
· Score: 3
Excuse me, but I come along here, see this being slagged off, and feel I need to apply the cluebat. This isn't trolling or flamebait, it's just me trying to clarify what the point of this is and what it isn't.
For one thing, it's been out less than a month. I've never seen development pick up so quickly on anything. Linux 0.01 was released in 1991, that was eight years ago. And there are people trying to compare.
Contrary to what most Linux advocates would seem to tell you, different OS's are good for different things.
V2 is not designed to be desperately stable, and certainly not portable. 100% assembler = 100% CPU power. This is a demo coder's OS, and damn cool it's going to be too. A lot of the old demoscene is waking up to this, and I've no doubt some very good stuff is going to show up soon.
But let's not take it for what it isn't. Yes, maybe this is a toy OS. Don't you guys have a sense of fun?:)
Martin J. Ling
V2 Os might not be totally crazy (size matters)
by
Matthew45464
·
· Score: 2
I dont know anything about Assembly language, but it seems like it could be hard to program a OS with it. One thing that does amaze me is that the download is 37k. This operating system doesn't do much with 37k but I'm for sure someone could add everything else need to make it do something interesting within a small amount of space. The whole computer could run off a 128k rom. Another plus might be the fact a computer could run entirely within Cache. I really think this small size thing could be useful if someone wanted to make a simple and very fast computer for really cheap price.
-- I can make these machines do anything I want. Make this world anything I want it to be. Just so long as concentrate hard
Slashdot Mirror
I used the first version of Linux that Linus put on the net, and was really early adopter of Minix 386 (remember the arguement between Tannebaum and Linus? Funny how that worked out.) Linux was much rougher then, but it was much more closer to an OS the V2OS. Linux has always had the layer of abstraction that allowed it to grow into what it was today. In fact I believe it is the fact that linux had some key features missing in Minix that made almost everyone switch development over.
V2OS is really a real time exec. Granted it looks like it has some very nice features, and a cleanly thought out design, but there are a lot of these out there. Plus, if I wanted a stripped RTE I'd want it to run on something smaller then a IA-32 (I've got one on a 6811 that I've used for years). Plus I can get Linux on a 68332 if I need a boomer of a microcontroller.
I'm missing what the target audience is supposed to be I guess. It seems to be sitting in the same place as some of QNX and Wind River's products, but it is a long way away from being as useful.
V2 is an elegant operating system. It provides some nice software interrupts, and becuase of its small size, could be great for embedded systems. Besides, as far as I know, you can program in C on it. It shouldn't be too hard to port over GCC, and from there many apps can be built...
It could also be an excellent boot-disk OS for demos. Demos, you know, those wicked multimedia presentations coded in ASM? Check out hornet.org for some great examples.
ASM has its place... and anybody who has looked at ASM code in a debugger and C compiled code in a debugger knows that human-written machine language is far simpler and faster.
Merry Christmas, yall!
Honestly, I wouldn't imagine that there would be much use for a 386 machine these days besides a print server or some other minimal task, and for that, you probably would use another operating system. In reality, by the time they get around to implementing the features for such things as routing, print serving, file serving, etc., the 786 would be out (partially joking here).
What I guess I'm trying to say is that the concept of it being a demo coding OS is just fine. But for practical applications, I can't quite see why. With this, why would someone be coding a demo to run on a 386? Should at least take advantage of some of the features of the 586 chip.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Here is a link to the "Art of Assmbler" :-) It's really a good read.
/much/ faster, and a lot more useable. I'm sure other famous emulators (like GeneCyst, etc) use ASM CPU cores at some point, as it's pretty hard to emulate well without. I'm not even going to go into the ASM wizardry John Carmack did for Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, etc :-)
If you want to know *why* ASM is good, go to the homepage of the DGen/SDL project, a genesis emulator for Linux. It uses an ASM memcpy function (using either MMX or "native" mode) as well as an ASM 68k and Z80 CPU core. By doing this, it makes the emulator
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
If you're interested in a cross-platform Unix-style shell implemented in Perl, take a look at psh (SourceForge). We can always use developers, testers, and technical writers. It's licensed like Perl (GPL and Artistic).
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
The problem with our aguement is that you assume that a good compiler cannot do the same optimizations that a human can. To some extent its true, but its balanced by a few things.
1. Code written in a high level language is easier to maintain and more likly than no has fewer bugs.
2. Not everyone is an expert ASM coder, it takes a lot of effort to become one.
3. If you aren't an expert ASM coder, then your code will be SLOWER than the compiler generated code. I don't mean a crappy ASM coder, even pretty good won't beat the latest compilers.
If you look at a REAL optimizing compiler (Intel's is probably the best for x86, Visual C++'s is almost as good, GCC is probably a distant third, mabye fourth) you can see that most optimizations that ASM coders can do are built into the compiler. I am writing a graphics library, and it has some of the tightest algorithms and code you'll ever see. But compiling with full optimizations in Visual C++ sped it up by 3 times over non-optimized. These are line drawing and bezier curve drawing routines that are already tricked out to begin with. In addition the compiler has a lot of advantages over an ASM coder. It can keep track of machine state much better and can take advantage of shortcuts that would be to arcane for an ASM coder to notice. It can utilize special instruction sets, knows the speed of each instruction on different sets of data (ie. dec/jnz is faster on 386) So unless you are writing a very tiny routine, and have been studying ASM code for that particular proccessor (PPro, PII, etc.) for years, chances are that the compiler will kick your ass.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Unfortunately, I have used the HP48/49, and going from a ti-82 to a ti-89 was a lot less steep of a curve than it would be going to an HP48. Besides, the features in the TIs are similar, which makes converting the ti-82/83 instructions in my math class easier.
And for what I'm using them for (Algebra 2, Games), the TI-89 is more than enough (if not overkill). The HP would be more difficult than it's worth. BTW, prove it's better.
If I need more comp power then a 68HC11/12 or a 68332, then I'm going to have a good bit of memory (read over 2 MB). The 68HC11/12 was never designed as a computational platform (the 6502 and family was actually not a Motorola part and in no way related to 68xx family or 68K family). That's were you move up to the CORE32 family like the 68332. It can then address 1 MB on up to 16 MB (and more on ceratin versions). There are tons of OSs that run in that space, even Linux. Linux is also quite useful for embedded applications in that space.
The 386EX and other IA-32 embedded solutions are almost always implemented with a meg or more of memory. This could easily run LinuxRT, or one of the many other RTOSs. Plus the embedded IA-32 equipment is expensive by comparison to more traditional microcontrollers.
The Hubble and most of the other space applications are more involved in why they choose those CPUs. First, they have to be RAD hard. ULSI CPUs (pentium and above) aren't there yet. Second, power consumption plays a huge roll. Running a CPU that takes 9W standby is pricy in space. Third, the low voltage stuff doesn't work as well in those environments due to grounds and radiation. NASA chooses Intel over Motorola often (atleast the people I've worked with) because of development tools investment (pSOS, QNX, Wind River) that they have, and that all the boards are custom makes anyway, so the hardware requirements are that it only needs to be survivable in those environments.
As far as the GPL goes, they can probably do what the Tivo does, release it on a web page.
it's a V2 server.
There's no reason for a sig here.
you can go to:
V2 Labs - The official V2 OS Page
Dash - the first and only shell for v2 os The V2OS Project Manager - By JayTaph
Nerdhero's v2os site - the home for the standard c lib as well as other stuff
tRen's v2os site - extremely out of data (2 weeks!)
V2 Demo Coder's site - if you are a demo coder go here!
#v2os channel site - the page for #v2os on effnet...
most of these places have either downloads of the source, etc. or links to another site with it!
The reason we (many of the coders for v2 os) wanted it open was not to be a linux wanabe.. It was not to get attention! It is nice that it is posted on slashdot, since that is where I found it (a few weeks ago), so others can find it.
The reason we wanted it open source is because we wanted to see what was happening inside so we could program for it better.
And as for your idea that slashdot caused this, I know that this is not the fact. It is because around a hundred programers have been working with v2 since it was released and we convinced them it the benifit would outweights the negatives.
So your theory that this was for slashdot or anything like that is totally off base...
Only a small number where interested? not really, we have had an active IRC channel and many developers for weeks. The developers said they were getting hundreds of emails a day inquiring about internal parts of the os! your complete argument is false! Many people have been working on V2 os for weeks before it was open sourced!
Correction: Modern C compilers typically generate code that is as fast or faster than what a person who doesn't know assembly language could write. Modern C compilers never generate code that is as fast as an experienced assembly language coder would write, except in trivial, easy cases where what the programmer is trying to do is simple enough that the compiler can understand it. AI still being a distant gleem in researchers' eyes, compilers lack the necessary understanding of what the programmer is actually attempting to do that they need to be truly effective optimizers.
I've seen a lot of disassembled code since I first learned assembly 16 years ago. Once in a while, I've seen trivial bits of code translated as fast as possible. Mostly, I've seen code that I could have written faster in assembly. Never, not even once, have I seen code that was faster than I would have produced myself.
The critical weakness that prevents C code from ever being as fast as assembly language code is the fact that the compiler doesn't know what you're doing. If I write a program in assembly language from the start, it's not going to look or work like a C program written to do the same thing. Not surprisingly then, since the best a C compiler can do is translate your C code into assembly code, it won't be as fast. In order to be as fast, the compiler would need to examine your C program, understand what it's supposed to do, and then write essentially from scratch its own assembly code to do the same thing, paying no attention to how your C code went about it but simply to what the end result would be. At this point, you're not feeding the C compiler code, you're feeding it a specificiation for what a program should do given these inputs and outputs.
Once compilers are capable of doing that, you won't need to write C code to begin with. You'll be able to simply tell the compiler what you want and let it do all the coding. But until this becomes the way compilers work, it will not be possible for a compiler to generate code as small and as fast as an experienced assembly language programmer.
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Does anybody else out there think it's ironic that "The FASTEST OS there is" has the slowest web site I've ever seen?
Not more than 3 feet away from me lies a working Apple //+ with 48kB of RAM. Outside of a couple pages for variable storage, Woz put an integer basic interpretter and the system monitor in 32 pages (8kB). And i'm told that Woz squezed a couple floating point math routines in there too just because there was space. So needless to say, i'm not impressed. Just because we're approaching normal gigabytes of RAM does not make it impossible to write tight code. In fact, it should be a goal to get your critcal code to fit in L1 cache! Interesting side note. For the Woz hand assembled his code because he couldn't afford the assembler. Tom
Is it just me, or is there a lot of hype over an OS that doesn't seem to be much more then a real time executive? It seems to get its speed more from not having any protection, or abstraction layer then being in asm. Having worked with stripped down OS's/Execs for years, I'll tell you its better to just add more machine. They have their place on smaller micros like the motorola 68xx and intel 8051 families, but not the IA-32 series.
Why on earth would anyone write an OS completely in ASM. Modern C compilers typically generate code that is as fast or faster than what a person could do it really doesn't make sense. Also, you get all the joys of maintaining it and portability is almost completely gone with very little in the way of speed gains. I know that asm in some places is needed or provides massive speed ups, but the entire OS is just a waste.
The site also seems somewhat limited on information. They say everything will be available from the download center.
You don't exist. Go away. --SysVinit Halt
Although I find it weird to write an OS in ASM, it must be cool stuff to read. And hey, if they can make a cool hack out of it, why not? I mean, our differences are what makes us evolve.
They should beowulf these things!
:~-(
Moderators: Please mark this as low as possible even though it's Christmas and only thing I want want is some + karma.
It's ok. I'm used to +1 and 0's even though I think my ccomments are usually good. I'm mean, c'mon, it's your job afterall. Just cause my self worth is at stake doesn't mean you shouldn't mark this message down... . . . . . . . . . . . .
Click here to read too much about my personal life
Merry Christmas, and in defense of this operating system, I would like to say that we are creating a developers environment..... We are not looking towards creating the most portable or even something for regular users... The V2 Labs guys (who created this in the first place) created this with a goal of maximizing multimedia. This operating system boots in about 1 second. So you can eventually have this sucker being your mp3 player in your car, or anything else and guess what... It will boot in 1 second!
Why would anyone want to work with this?
I work with it because there is a lot needed to make this a fully functional operating system. I don't know about most of you, but I wasn't able to help contribute to the base of any other operating system, and the experience for me is a good one. It may not turn out to be everything we want, but I am learning a lot about shells and operating systems.
Speaking of shells, if you want to get a shell for V2 OS, go to v2dash.hypermart.net It is up to version 0.007a (codename Golden Eye). It is open source, so if you want to help in the coding of a shell (unix style), now is a great opertunity..... Last of all Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukkah, and have a good day if you don't observe either of these holidays!
after running this "OS"I was very underwelmed, i command their effort, but am not impressed. it seems to me they are simply trying
to be a linux wanabe by making open source. I also have a suspicion that the slashdot response is directly responsible for this.
they saw that only a small group of people we're interesting in a bairly functional OS if it was closed. this is another of many recant
demonstrations that the Open Source Movement(tm) is effecting the world.
-Jon
this is my sig.
For one thing, it's been out less than a month. I've never seen development pick up so quickly on anything. Linux 0.01 was released in 1991, that was eight years ago. And there are people trying to compare.
Contrary to what most Linux advocates would seem to tell you, different OS's are good for different things.
V2 is not designed to be desperately stable, and certainly not portable. 100% assembler = 100% CPU power. This is a demo coder's OS, and damn cool it's going to be too. A lot of the old demoscene is waking up to this, and I've no doubt some very good stuff is going to show up soon.
But let's not take it for what it isn't. Yes, maybe this is a toy OS. Don't you guys have a sense of fun? :)
Martin J. Ling
I dont know anything about Assembly language, but it seems like it could be hard to program a OS with it. One thing that does amaze me is that the download is 37k. This operating system doesn't do much with 37k but I'm for sure someone could add everything else need to make it do something interesting within a small amount of space. The whole computer could run off a 128k rom. Another plus might be the fact a computer could run entirely within Cache. I really think this small size thing could be useful if someone wanted to make a simple and very fast computer for really cheap price.
I can make these machines do anything I want. Make this world anything I want it to be. Just so long as concentrate hard