dm_blog

I’m not sure what sparked my interest in operating systems, but I’ve always been fascinated by this complex piece of software. I first started tinkering with Linux/Unix during my college days and I could install, administer and even build and compile Linux and Minix much before crowds knew what Linux was.

After the initial infatuation, I took up design and implementation of Operating system as a major subject in my Masters. What drew me to minix was a book by Professor Andrew S. Tanenbaum of University of Vrije (official homepage) called Design and Implementation of Modern Operating System.  Linus Torvalds called it - “A book that launched him to new heights” in his autobiography, “Just For Fun: The story of an accidental revolutionary“. The book, amongst other things, discussed the implementation of an operating system called Minix - an operating system that was later forked off by Linus  Torvalds into Linux.

I neither started a company like Bill gates  nor I kicked off an open source revolution like Linus Torvalds. However, my interest in operating systems grew even stronger. And thats when I decided to start contributing to Minix. The only question was how? It was about the same time, that Advanced Micro Devices a rival chip maker of Intel introduced their first 64 bit processor and I decided to port Minix to a 64 bit processor as part of my College project.

However, I soon realized that it was as easy as I had thought. No 64 bit compilers and assemblers existed for Minix and I resorted to writing one FROM SCRATCH. Although, NASM and MASM existed, I though writing one could be fun and educational.

I eventually did write a small assembler for my college project but it never met the standards of Minix code. I was even admitted into official Minix development community but,  eventually I got busy with my day job and abandoned the project.

I’m restarting the project soon and hope to deliver the assember by mid 2009.  I started a newsgroup around the same and most development and discussion will take place on the group.

If you are interested, you may join the group at it digital address: 64, Developer Avenue and check out other Minix resources here.

I’ll be tracking all development through this page, once its revived. Stay tuned!