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Hi,
first (sorry for my bad language)
that was old dream , I hope to do it.
I ask about designing an operating system of my own. Simple operating system (mp3, image processor, run the Games Dark Basic or Dark GDK, Internet ...) such as a Playstation 3 and Wii and Xbox.
Can I use the dark basic or dark gdk without C++ or should it
How can I identify the device in DBP ...
Can I use shaders... Thank you

I've never programmed an operating system (Nor do I know the full power of DBP, as I've only read through half of the documentation), so I may be wrong, but I believe it would be impossible to write the entire operating system with DBP. Sooner or later you would need access to low level systems that would be impossible to access in DBP.

The Boot loader is a great example. Necessary for any operating system, and can only be written in Assembly, or at the very highest, in C (Though I'm not certain it can be written in C/C++, if it is possible to write one at any higher a level than ASM, C would probably be the top). There are other areas too, of course, but the boot loader is the first thing you need, so it makes a great example.

While I'm nearly certain it's possible to write some of it in DB (As there have been systems written in part by other high level languages like C# and Java, and I think I even saw a project for a Ruby OS(I pity the Developers of these interpreted/Virtual machine code language projects)), I wouldn't think a language made specifically for game development would be the best choice.

For an operating system, your best bet would probably be learning C/C++ and the ASM of whatever processor you plan to make the OS for (I'd guess x86 ASM, used in Intel and AMD processors).

Or then again, you may completely disregard everything I have said, as once again, I have never programmed an OS. Or used ASM. Or C/C++. I just read a lot.

This has taken so long to write, I'm sure someone with more info on the matter has came along with a higher quality response. Probably shorter too. But I'm still pressing "Post Message"

Sorry for the the double post, but I'm on the noob probation thing, and I can't edit the post until after it's approved.

There is one other reason DBP, for the most part, won't work: All/most of it's graphics commands rely on DirectX, and until you get DirectX Compatibility working (Haven't seen it, but I say take a look at Wine code), the graphics capabilities will have to be skipped for a while.

I would
"To save your work, beat the boss".

Sounds fun, I may have the perfect text editor for said system.

lol, that looks awesome. Did you make it?

"To save your work, beat the boss".

If you lose you get the Blue screen of death

Your not really talking about an OS, to make an OS to support all that stuff from scratch is inconceivable.

What your actually talking about making is a front end, which is a great idea - especially when letting youngsters play games on your PC, in the safety of a walled garden kind of thing.

I would say that DBPro could do this quite elequently, but when you run a program (well before actually executing it) I would send the front end into a wait loop, but use the system friendly sleep command - this will free up your processor for the game you are running. Maybe the system just displays a 'press a key' screen while in a loop.

One thing to be aware off, and that's DBPro's love of killing it's media on minimize - to get around that I check for the existence of a known object and if it's gone, I reload and re-setup the media. This would make it much more robust and sensible. I tend to make a function to load and setup media and let it be called several times if need be - it's far better to go to those lengths than have a buggy system, so don't consider it an option for this sort of project, tis vital .

So the main thing is handling when it needs to run a program, because it'll handle everything else perfectly well - as I said make a little hidding place function, that will minimize and free up the processor for other things, pause music maybe, and sit in a sleep loop.

I plan something similar for my arcade cabinet - want to make a 3D arcade, explore it and find a game you want to play, find the jukebox to play music etc etc. It would be amazing if we could run an application and grab it's screen as an image - imagine texturing a 3D monitor display with the output from a game, or YouTube!. My plan is for a mini Mame cabinet - like half size, but the same proportions etc as a real cabinet - have it on coasters, and it'll be a mame / media centre thing for my lounge. Whether it's sitting in the corner being a jukebox or in front of the couch playing Bubble Bobble. I quite like the idea of doing it myself instead of going for a pre-built solution (also known as a dreary old roms menu). I think it's a pretty good project that will open up a lot of avenues - as you'll have to cover different areas that will be useful knowledge for if you keep developing or start a game project for instance.

I can understand the reservations of using DBPro for this - but I really think that it's worth it for the sheer fun and ease at which you will be able to add your own things. It might get a bit messy when running external games, but when inside the system playing music and doing all the other OS'ish things, well it'll be great.

Specifically for the purpose of relaying how much I like the idea of an operating system revolved around games.


Yeah, or you can go that route. But it won't be as fun, or as complicated, as learning ASM! Yay, brain overload!


That would be great - I've had a few ideas and situations pop-up where that would have been useful.

thanks everybody