OS for electronics projects

[Dex4u]

Hi all.
I am new here, but have been into electronics for a number of years, but my main interest is computer programming (assembly mostly ), my main project for a number of years has been a 32bit pmode OS (call Dex4u ) i and a team of other asm programmers are working on.
One of the main aims of the the OS is to be good for controlling electronic projects, a sort of super dos, with easy access to ports etc, but without dos 1MB, memory restriction etc, also gone are dos low-res screen mode, as the OS supports 32bpp vesa modes, it has got a CLI and GUI.
I would really appreciate your ideas on making it better for electronics projects thanks.
**broken link removed**

 

[Styx]

I would recomend Linux

For such a low system spec the two distro's of interest would be LFS (bloody hard) or Damb-small-linux

I would also recomend PYTHON as the language, port control is soo easy even I can do it and I am more power based not software

 

[Dex4u]

We all have our own favourites, usually there the ones, we are most familiar with using.
I have made my OS from the ground up to be good for electronic projects.
eg: i have written a program for my OS in less than 1k to fully control a old furby, by using the IR on a laptop (new furby do not use IR anymore).
Thanks for your input.

PS: If any of you are needing to control a project by PC, maybe you will give Dex4uOS a look.

 

[akg]

building an os from ground up is no childs job..
u people deserve a good appreciation...

 

[Optikon]

We all have our own favourites, usually there the ones, we are most familiar with using.
I have made my OS from the ground up to be good for electronic projects.
eg: i have written a program for my OS in less than 1k to fully control a old furby, by using the IR on a laptop (new furby do not use IR anymore).
Thanks for your input.

PS: If any of you are needing to control a project by PC, maybe you will give Dex4uOS a look.

Well, if it is to be good for controlling electronics projects, I assume that it has built in support for parallel port, serial port AND USB? Keep in mind, these peripheral controls are already supported by Windoze & Linux, it's not clear why someone would go and write new code for your OS in these circumstances.

You say that your OS is designed for speed. How is that so? What is the speed problem that Wintel PC's have today that your OS solves? That wasnt really clear on your website.

You appear to be a very skilled ASM programmer. I am not a programmer so here is my non-programmer view (a large part of your target audience)
This is honest and not meant to offend you or your OS in any way.

1) If I have to do more work on DEV4UOS, it has to be because it is better in some way or solves some very significant problem, otherwise, why would I bother changing from mainstream where there is _mountains_ of support & information available?

2) It has to be very easy to get up and running (looks like your install & setup accomplishes this very well)

3) For controlling electronics, If I have to write ANY assembler - forget it! It doesnt matter to me if the code size is 1 byte!!! I dont want to learn assembler when I can do simple stuff MUCH easier in Visual Basic for a windows PC. You might say, well, that's just my hate of assembler. I dont hate it. I'd learn it if I needed to but the need never arises! The need never arises for 99% or more of the people trying to control electonics. Keep it in mind. Can I run VB on DEVOS?

4) Tell me what it can do that I can't already do with an OS. Faster doing what? Why would that be important to me? If I made a DVD player that could operates faster, would anyone want it? There is no need. How is it faster? The screen shots of your website don't show anything of significance in my opinion..??

Don't get me wrong, I applaud people like you giving others alternatives! You and your team did a great job and learned alot I'm sure with this interesting project. I just struggle to see why anyone would change to it.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

You say that your OS is designed for speed. How is that so? What is the speed problem that Wintel PC's have today that your OS solves?

How about the fact that Wintel machines basically crawl?. Windows is only useable at all by throwing massive processing power at it.

One obvious disadvantage for Windows though is the problem of running on multiple hardware, Apple have never had that problem as the hardware is exclusive. Apple also aren't hampered by trying to remain compatible with their old machines, or by using Intel processors (which were NEVER really a good choice for a home computer).

 

[Optikon]

How about the fact that Wintel machines basically crawl?. Windows is only useable at all by throwing massive processing power at it.

There is some truth to this.
Ho-hum... it depends on what applications you need to run right?

I hate windows myself but not for speed reasons. I'd say 90% of common applications can run perfectly fast on a win-tel machine for most of the daily users out there. Now, when you are talking about needing to take advantage of real-time processing power with the OS, you can forget about windows! (and probably intels/amd mainstream processors as well!)

BUT, the DEVOS pitch was for controlling electronics. A palm pilot is up for that kind of task just fine! and so is a lowly wintel machine.. I just dont see any advantage of his OS over windows for such seemingly simple tasks (like USB, parallel port, IRDA etc..)


We'll see what he says about it.. the website is lacking in detail to get a good idea. Where's the benchmarking? :roll:

 

[Dex4u]

First thanks for your comments, you make some good points, but the real advantage in Dex4u over say XP is more for projects that will be running for long periods, that are monitoring some event. with Dex4u the program is in full control, it is small simple. but with a OS that is about a GB in size like XP, there alway events going on in the background you have no control over.

Then there is cheap hardware, you will be able to run projects fast on old p100 with Dex4u, than on more modern PC with XP on it.

Also as Dex4u can boot from floppy, cd, usb key-fob with out touching your harddrive it does not matter what OS people have they can still run the code.
There is support for "parallel port, serial port and USB" the USB module is being worked on by tonyMac: https://tonymac.asmhackers.net/
I think it may not be until you need a OS that is small simple, but powerfull, for your projects that you will see the benefits.
Just think how usefull a bootable PC based Oscilloscope would be.

Thanks again for all your inputs 8) .

 

[lord loh.]

It would be good if the OS could boot up via USB drive.... I have never seen one... But I have managed to boot my PC using a USB connected CD ROM drive....

Also I would like to add this statement....

"Intel Giveth, Microsoft Taketh Away".

Recently reading a few pages from a book on Microsoft's success story, I learnt that Paul Allen wanted to start a hardware industry while Bill Gates wanted to go software... His argument was that every 18 months, the processing power is doubling...There is so much processing power that processing power is as good as free.... Why make something that is free?

A very wise business decision but bad from the point of view of people like Seymour Cray who spent their lives after building faster and faster machines....

 

[mramos1]

It would be good if the OS could boot up via USB drive.... I have never seen one... But I have managed to boot my PC using a USB connected CD ROM drive....

Google for DSL Damn Small Linux, it is about 50 meg and will boot from USB if you mother board will support USB boots.

 

[MikeHibbett]

Alternatively, you might consider adding your effort to an existing 'unusual low level' OS development.

How about Menuet? Written is 32 bit assembly ( 64 bit version in the works ).

I'm slightly bias though )

 

[Dex4u]

Yes Dex4u can boot from a usb key-fob if your BIOS supports it.
@MikeHibbett, are you not the coder of the of MenuetOS TCP/IP stack and once leader :wink:
Yes MenuetOS is a great OS, but some time there's a need for single tasking OS.
eg: a supper pmode 32/64bit dos, as in full access to all hardware, but i am still a MenuetOS fan .

 

[MikeHibbett]

Yes, thats me. Children got in the way, so I'm no longer involved...

 

[akg]

It would be good if the OS could boot up via USB drive.... I have never seen one... But I have managed to boot my PC using a USB connected CD ROM drive....
....

some usb pendrive include s/w to make a bootable usb drive , so that plug it and the pc will boot from the usb drive (ofcource needs bios support)

 

[lord loh.]

Google for DSL Damn Small Linux, it is about 50 meg and will boot from USB if you mother board will support USB boots.

DSL is an emulator... I have tried it out.... It operates on Windows environment.

 

[Dex4u]

Dex4u's kernel is a mz exe, the bootloader for Dex4u is a com/exe file loader.
So this means you can boot Dex4u from Dos by just typing "kernel.exe" so if you can run dos from it eg: USB pen-drives you can also run Dex4u.