Catalogue of novel operating systems
Somewhere after the fall in popularity of note-taking apps, perhaps recognizing that just note-taking is not enough and the deafening hype of LLMs, there was a sweet period of lull when a lot of people started boldly building new operating systems. This is a catalogue of such operating systems that I have come across. In the past, before the commercialization of computers, we had a plethora of operating systems with unique languages to interact with computers, like AmigaOS, Symbolics, SunOS, MULTICS, Burroughs, Meneut, BeOS PARC, Star, Oberon, Plan9, NeXTSTEP, OS/2, PL/8, Inferno, QNX, RISCOS etc. This spirit can only be glimpsed in pockets, and kudos to all those who keep the fire alive!
A thread on it here.
Perhaps the best one to start off this catalog is the UXN/Varvara personal computing stack of 100 Rabbits. Such a great couple with such a radical vision!
They have documented their rationale in these two documents:
Documents related to UXN can be obtained here: https://github.com/hundredrabbits/awesome-uxn?tab=readme-ov-file
Daring effort from Rasmus Andersson and team to reinvent the computer stack.
And alpha version available here.
Folk computer by Omar Rizwan and Andreas Cuérvo is a research project centered around building physical computing interfaces. It shares its roots from Bret Victor’s Dynamicland.
Nette.io by Pawel Ceranka positions itself as a research OS for the web.
Something about Lisp draws people into construct OSes from ground up. Perhaps it is the simplicity of the language that acts as the foundation. Here‘s Interim, one of our favourite minimal OSes constructed with Lisp.
An OS written in CommonLisp
ChrysaLisp is amulti-threaded, multi-core, multi-user parallel OS with features such as a GUI, terminal, OO Assembler, class libraries, C-Script compiler, Lisp interpreter, debugger, profiler, vector font engine, and more.
DesktopNeo, a rethinking of the desktop interface by Lennart Ziburski
MercuryOS by Jason Yuan is an interesting rethink of the OS based on intensions:
Prototype by Rauno Freiberg. https://x.com/raunofreiberg/status/1666122499401166873
The team seems to be working on MercuryOS → Makespace.fun → New.computer
Freeze the desktop interface and then thaw it at will: https://x.com/getFreezeframe/status/1358805285393948673
Interesting article on partitioned rooms by mental space with little bubbles on the edges that act as wormholes into things you want to achieve.
Lab notes documenting explorations of the “operating system of the future,” and with those concepts, creating an experimental new environment for personal computing.