🤰🏾 🛀🏽 😔 These strange OSs: briefly about three unusual operating systems 👇🏾 🍼 🕴🏿

We are used to living in a world of victorious Linux, Windows, and macOS. Modern users rarely think that there are other operating systems developed and supported by independent authors and communities. But they are. There are many, they are different: old and new, stable and crooked, current and abandoned.

Under the cut, we will briefly talk about three interesting and distinctive OSs that often remain behind the scenes of world computer history. They are not like each other, developed by different people at different times, but interesting in their own way.

Disclaimer: we do not set ourselves the goal of diving deep into the device and the specifics of each system. A detailed study would take more than one kilometer of electronic paper and would be interesting only to a narrow circle of specialists. If any of the systems interests you, you will find all the necessary links (to project sites, authors biographies and distributions) in the corresponding sections of the article.

ToaruOS

Developer: K. Lange
Last release: 1.12.0
Project website: toaruos.org
Year of development start: December 2010
Status: development continues

This list opens with a very lively and modern OS. Despite some visual similarities, Toaru is a standalone development and is not based on the Linux kernel.

The project started in December 2010 as a student work of the programmer K. Lange.

An ambitious young man decided to write a simple operating system to better understand this aspect of programming. After some time, the project first spread to Lange's friends and colleagues. Then he migrated to the hard drives of enthusiasts around the world. To date, the author's task has been to create a full-fledged ecosystem for daily use. It will be difficult to say whether it will turn out or not. Time will tell.
The name ToaruOS is due to the manga A Certain Scientific Railgun, however, the author claims that her name also reflects the common name of other OS hobbies.

ToaruOS consists of the following main components:

Toaru Kernel , the kernel of the operating system.
Yutani , a window composer, manages window buffers, layout, and input routing.
Bim, , , , Vim’. .
Terminal, 256 24 .
ld.so (dynamic linker/loader), ELF.
Esh, shell. , , .
MSK, . -.

The approximate amount of the code base of the project is 80,000 lines in C and assembly language. Inside the system, the correct operation of Python 3 and GCC is supported.

The author of the system recommends installing ToaruOS purely in a virtual machine, since support for real hardware is very limited. Despite the full-fledged “unit” in the version, the project is still too young for it to be possible to use on a regular PC.
Let’s say on our own: ToaruOS looks quite interesting. On the one hand, the author’s desire to do everything from scratch impresses. Some packages (libpng, Cairo, etc.) that were previously included in the base distribution belong to third-party developers, but this does not reduce the originality of the project. On the other hand, the UI has a strong Linux influence. In the first minute, it might seem like it's actually LXDE with Gnome-like icons. But, as they say, they are met by clothes, and escorted by convenience and speed. And by the "mind", too, of course.

Judging by the updates, ToaruOS is actively developing. The latest release at the moment - v.1.12.0 - is dated April 7th.

A short video from the OS developer:

On the basis of ToaruOS, a comic operating system PonyOS was created , dedicated to the animated series My Little Pony.

Plan 9

Developer: Bell Labs (Ken Thompson, Rob Pike Dave Presotto, Phil Winterbottom)
Last release: 4th edition
Project site: 9p.io/plan9 Development
period: 1980th
Status: project closed

This is no longer a “student” ToaruOS. The same people who once developed Unix were involved in the creation of Plan 9.

Plan 9 was originally conceived as an experimental model for solving various problems of operating systems, rather than as a real commercial product. True, this did not prevent the project owners from selling licenses for the system. However, not very successful and very expensive. During the life cycle of the OS, 4 versions were released. The first was available only to universities. The second was sold for a considerable $ 350 to everyone. The third was distributed free of charge under the Plan 9 License, and the fourth under the Lucent Public License v1.02. In 2014, Plan 9 was published under GPLv2 .

With some assumptions, we can say that Plan 9 is a direct descendant of Unix: outside the graphical shell, the system is controlled by Unix commands, and the principle “everything is a file” is put at the forefront. Read more about the OS device here..

The mascot of the project is Zaychikha Glenda, drawn by American illustrator Reni French. The

experiment remained an experiment, but Plan 9 inspired the creation of several “descendants”: HarveyOS, Jehanne OS and Inferno OS.

The system code is quite compact and lightweight. In theory, Plan 9 can be ported to almost any processor architecture with hardware support for MMU.

The origin of the OS name is very curious: it is named after the second-rate horror movie of 1959 Plan 9 From Outer Space (the ideas of the developers of operating systems agree on something).
Today Plan 9 can be interesting and interesting from the point of view of studying programming approaches, but it no longer makes practical sense. You can see how the system works in a virtual machine here .

TempleOS

Developer: Terrence Andrew Davis
Last release: 5.03 (11/20/2017)
Project sites: www.templeos.org , archive.org/details/TempleOS_Website_Archive Started
development: 2003
Actuality: development stopped due to the death of the author

Most likely, it makes no sense in detail retell the biography of the author of TempleOS or dive into the device of the operating system. All this can be gleaned from Wikipedia or from the OS site, indicated a little higher. On Habré already toldabout TempleOS and its author, however, we could not ignore this story. The story of Terry Davis has already become a byword, a terrible, but touching tale for all programmers.

Terrence Andrew Davis was born in 1969 into a large family in Wisconsin. He received a good technical education at the University of Arizona. First I used Apple II as a home computer, then I moved to Commodore 64. And everything was not bad until 1996, when Terry began the first manic episodes. The initial diagnosis of bipolar personality disorder was not confirmed. It was schizophrenia. Terry received disability benefits and moved with his parents to the suburbs of Las Vegas.

Despite his Catholic upbringing, a substantial part of Terry's conscious life was an atheist. But during one of the exacerbations of his illness, he experienced "divine revelation." Terry claimed that he spoke directly with God. From "God" Terry received the terms of reference for the development of the operating system, which was to become the Third Temple. Initially, the OS was called "J Operating System", then - "LoseThos" and "SparrowOS".

The final name, TempleOS, was established by 2013.

The philosophy of the new system was based on Terry's view of the possible development of the Commodore 64 OS, only “a thousand times” faster and more powerful. Most of the functions, according to the author, such as a 16-color palette or 640x480 screen resolution, were also dictated by God.

In the OS, Davis's intellect and his insanity were intertwined. Among other things, there was an "Oracle", which, based on a random number generator, created text messages, which the author interpreted as "the encrypted answers of God."

At the beginning of 2018, Davis stopped taking medications, as "they killed creativity in him." Parents put him before a choice: to take medicine and live with them or to go to hospital forcibly. Terry chose his option: leave home. During his wanderings, he conducted a video blog. The considerable fan base that TempleOS had acquired by that time came in handy. Many people were ready to support him, gave some food, money and offered an overnight stay.

Shortly before his death, he deleted most of his videos, explaining that he did not want to "litter" on the Internet and "found a way to clean himself." At this point, the disease finally prevailed over the mind. In a later video, he claimed to be capable of killing if God commanded him.

Terry Davis died under a train near Dulles, Oregon on August 11, 2018. It is not known whether this was a suicide or an accident.

In memory of Terry, all distributions and earlier versions of the OS are available on the official website. There you can also find links to online broadcasts in which non-stop saved videos from Terry's blog are played.

In his last video address, recorded just a few hours before his death, he says:

«It's good to be king. Wait, maybe. I think maybe I'm just like a little bizarre little person who walks back and forth. Whatever, you know, but...»
( . , … , , , -. , , …).

The story of Terry Davis is a rare case when the story of the author and the OS itself are equally interesting.

As with the above systems, we will leave some links and screenshots so that you can study them yourself. No personal article can replace your personal experience. Let's say one thing - there is something to see.

As part of TempleOS, there are several games divided by the author into two categories - funny and gloomy. Let's say a secret, even from “fun” games an untrained gamer can goosebumps. Here are a few screenshots and video gameplay with the author’s comments.

Racing simulator Varoom

Castle Frankenstein

Black Diamond

TimeOut

BugBird

Bomber Golf

TheDead

DunGen

EagleDive

RawHide

X-Caliber

AfterEgypt

This “game” should be given special attention, if only because of the menu:

According to the author, the utility allows you to communicate with God through the generation of random numbers.

If you wish, you can watch other videos with TempleOS games:

Terry's parents asked all who are not indifferent to Terry and his work to make donations to charitable foundations and other organizations, "which diminish the pain and suffering caused by mental illness."

At various times, Davis’s work was referred to as “a skyscraper that is built by one person”, as “the fruit of genius and madness.” Someone called him a "legendary programmer" during his lifetime. One way or another, TempleOS is a very moving and multifaceted story. It is worth touching it yourself to draw conclusions.

Here is the list: side development of a large company, a hobby project and TempleOS, which in principle is difficult to unambiguously classify.

Writing your own operating system really looks like building a skyscraper: it is huge, it threatens to fall on your head at any moment, and the top is lost in the clouds. At some point, I really want to spit on this empty venture. Someone really abandons the project and never returns to it again. Someone, gritting his teeth, continues. Stone to stone, brick to brick ...

Be that as it may, it is an important and honorable work to create a new one or rethink the good old. Even without a chance of success, as entertainment. What do you think?

These strange OSs: briefly about three unusual operating systems

ToaruOS

Plan 9

TempleOS

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