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Index > MenuetOS > One floppy OS?

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Kain



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 108
Kain 03 Mar 2004, 19:10
Here is a little comparisson of 1980's GUI based operating systems.

The 2.0 version of Amiga Kickstart kernel was about 512k, the Workbench GUI front-end (earlier versions) added about another 400k with all the system uitlities and libraries.

Atari ST early kernels ran about 256k and probably (I don't know for sure) another 400k or so for its GUI front.

I don't know much about the early Macs internals, but I'd wager they were about similar to the two above. Out of the three, the B/W Macintosh probably offered the most stable OS.

These were pretty good sytstems on their own. Yet they lacked some features that are nice to have.

Menuet with its 80k or so kernel is already looking very good when it comes to functionality.

All in all, One can indeed have a decent, complete OS that fits on one floppy.
Post 03 Mar 2004, 19:10
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spideros1



Joined: 17 Jan 2004
Posts: 77
Location: Poland
spideros1 03 Mar 2004, 21:11
If PC hardware had standarized programming interface, Menuet would be smaller Wink
In old computers you knew what, e.g. video card was, floppy disk as it's in PSX now, so kernel can be smaller a lot.
Post 03 Mar 2004, 21:11
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asmdemon



Joined: 18 Jan 2004
Posts: 97
Location: Virginia Beach, VA
asmdemon 05 Mar 2004, 03:22
It seems that the only standard on computers nowadays is FFFF:0000 jump. That and Most Int calls. Rolling Eyes I wish ALL hardware has SOME standards to adhere to. Twisted Evil

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Post 05 Mar 2004, 03:22
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comrade



Joined: 16 Jun 2003
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Location: Russian Federation
comrade 05 Mar 2004, 03:51
I was first mesmerized by QNX - one-floppy OS that had a web browser and a RAS dialer, plus other toys. Then year ago I tried MenuetOS Smile

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Post 05 Mar 2004, 03:51
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pelaillo
Missing in inaction


Joined: 19 Jun 2003
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pelaillo 05 Mar 2004, 04:20
I rmember very well a one floppy os called GEOS under C64. It fits in a floppy (166KB!) and it had a program manager, a notepad, a write and paint program, a file manager, a sound player/recorder, printing manager,... and I am talking about year 1980 Twisted Evil
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comrade



Joined: 16 Jun 2003
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comrade 05 Mar 2004, 04:42
wow, I was not even born back then Smile

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Post 05 Mar 2004, 04:42
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Kain



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 108
Kain 05 Mar 2004, 06:45
Today's OSes are so bloated, it's not funny. My Win98 Windows folder contains 2.5 gigabytes. 2.5 in 1000+ folders! What the hell is in there? I'm afraid to look.

It's quiet sobering to see the One-floppy OS emerging again. Most have forgotten that there were powerful operating systems a deade or two ago that managed much in so little space, usually one 756k boot floppy with a half-meg kernel.
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comrade



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comrade 05 Mar 2004, 07:13
Bloat of OS is probably exponentially proportional to progress of computer resources. Just wait for Longhorn!

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Post 05 Mar 2004, 07:13
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roticv



Joined: 19 Jun 2003
Posts: 374
Location: Singapore
roticv 05 Mar 2004, 08:53
Kain,

Try formating and reinstalling your os. You will find out that it would be smaller than 2.8G. This is because some programs like to dump crap in windows directory. Even my win2k winnt folder is only 1GB.
Post 05 Mar 2004, 08:53
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Torrey



Joined: 12 Oct 2003
Posts: 78
Torrey 05 Mar 2004, 09:35
I have came up with the conclusion that a majority of the bloat with Windows is because they attempt to guard and protect people from reversing their code. Because of this they have to add lots of code to simple programs and other parts of their OS. Not to mention with each version of Windows that gets released it will support more hardware. Those require several drivers to be installed. A project of that magnitude adds up fast in size.
Post 05 Mar 2004, 09:35
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Gomer73



Joined: 29 Nov 2003
Posts: 151
Gomer73 05 Mar 2004, 17:02
The bloat probably has a lot to do with everything being programmed in C and graphics.

Think about it, some old OS's fit in 512K-1meg. If you look at a screen that is 1024x768 at 32bit color. The screen takes up 3meg, so if you have any icons, bmp, whatever, these will definitely add to it.

I forgot what clusters are allocated at but probably the minimum disk space a file takes up is somewhere between 16k-32k. If you have a lot of small files this increases disk space by quite a bit.

Supporting the windows gui in itself takes up more space. Instead of just displaying something on the screen, you have to use their proceedures, which have several steps, to display anything. Not only that but you can't just display it once and that is it. You have to design your program so that it has to calculate it's display everytime there is a refresh.

Probably the other thing that bloats things is preparation for stuff that is never used. For instance, edit boxes can hold 64K, not really needed for entering a person's nambe. I don't know if that much space is reserved in the file itself, but makes you think.
Post 05 Mar 2004, 17:02
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