MenuetOS 1.0 has been released.
It all started as a question if computer programming could be made more efficient. And Menuet has matured to be an operating system with modern features including pre-emptive multitasking, smp, usb, tcp/ip, transparent GUI and many other features. And above all, MenuetOS is 100% assembly written operating system. With version 1.00, we made small history today.
Congratulations to the MenuetOS team for sticking with it – this is a great achievement. ComputerWorld Australia has an interview with Ville Turjanmaa, its creator.
And it still fits on a floppy disk.
I love MenuetOS!
Gosh. It sounds like they’ve invented AmigaOS. Amazing!
As someone who has watched in dismay as high-end operating systems and applications grew from tightly-coded kilobytes a couple of decades ago to the megabyte monstrosities we have today, I find MenuetOS a breath of fresh air.
*cough* Gigabyte *cough*
Yeah, I was being nice. There aren’t too many gigabyte applications YET, although there are plenty of multi-hundred megabyte ones.
I couldn’t agree with you more. It seems the more technology “improves” the larger & more bloat-filled OS’s become. MenuetOS is definitely a breath of fresh air.
Seems to be lacking a bittorrent client, but other than that it could cover my day to day computer use.
…does it support some kind of standard e.g. POSIX that allows normal-code to target it as a platform? Surely that would be the next step on the ladder of potential.
its creator.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
This is good stuff – we plan to build a small router OS on top of this (with an intel pro 1000 requirement)
That sounds like a good idea.
I wonder what it would take to make a POSIX layer for it.
What for considering its non existent hardware support (ok, it supports VESA, a couple of NICs and USB mass storage, but other than that it’s almost nothing)?
Same as with the OS itself – just for fun. Or just because somebody can. Besides, by making it easier to port the existing software to MenuetOS, a POSIX layer would also boost the incentive to write hardware drivers for it because you could potentially do more with the OS.
Hi,
Everyone that cares about POSIX wouldn’t be interested in the first place (they’d be using OSs like Linux, Free/open/netBSD, Solaris); and the people who are interested in Menuet (e.g. those who are attracted by “100% assembly”) will stop caring about Menuet as soon as someone slaps POSIX on top and the inevitable “let’s port all the GNU user-space” begins.
Mostly; POSIX might seem like a good idea, but it’s a bit pointless and more likely to completely destroy the project.
– Brendan
I’ve made C library for MenuetOS several years ago (also dis box port, etc.). POSIX for MenuetOS is completely irrelevant. Whatever is required can be emulated on top of exposed APIs: mainly filesystem interface and malloc. Threads are also not a problem.
Hi,
Almost every single thing written about Menuet (by Menuet developers/promoters and others) has claimed “100% assembly”; all the way back to the very beginning of the project. It’s considered by the developers as one of the project’s biggest advantages.
So; either all of these people are liars and the project does use some C (and is not 100% assembly); or you did write a C library and nothing in the entire OS uses it.
I don’t know; but I suspect the latter.
– Brendan
If I understand the website correctly, the base OS that fits on a floppy is assembly but then, if you want the supplementary apps CD containing things like DOSBox, you have to put up with C.
The OS and I guess GUI etc. is in Assembly.
And no one hinders you to write your application in assembly too. But most people today don’t know anything about “register”, “load” and “store”. So the applications can be written in C.
The thing is, the OS produces a minimal overhead and any slow application can be blamed to the application 🙂