Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 17th Sep 2012 16:56 UTC, submitted by Andy McLaughlin
"Visopsys (VISual OPerating SYStem) is an alternative operating system for PC-compatible computers, developed almost exclusively by one person, Andy McLaughlin, since its inception in 1997. Andy is a 30-something programmer from Canada, who, via Boston and San Jose ended up in London, UK, where he spends much of his spare time developing Visopsys. We had the great fortune to catch up with Andy via email and ask him questions about Visopsys, why he started the project in the first place, and where is it going in the future."
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Member since:2011-01-28
Of course, BIOS is strictly a legacy interface today, essentially undeveloped since the 1980's. Never the less, in it's prime, consider what a huge phenomenal success BIOS was in achieving a level of hardware independence that would have been impossible without it.
The small OS I wrote did run on PCs other than mine. I didn't have to do anything extra to make it run on a laptop, it just did because those standards existed. I am absolutely positive that Andy and all other indy-OS devs you'll find will agree that they crave a standard interface that would just make their OS work everywhere without having to reinvent the wheel and write new drivers for the Nth time.
Let's all have a good laugh comparing the idea to a 16 bit BIOS, but on a serious level I'd rather not dismiss the notion of a modernised standard as a joke. It would be tremendously useful in promoting innovation in the operating system space by making it much easier for alternative operating systems to be taken seriously as competitive platforms.
Member since:2005-07-06
Features
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
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Member since:
2011-08-13
That's what the BIOS does. Welcome to 16-bit mode.