History

This page is a work in progress.

This page may thus be incomplete. Its content may be changed in the near future.

This page covers the history of Operating System Development (OSDev) as it applies to amateur, educational and smaller operating systems. Other pages cover different aspects of the history of computer operating systems. A general history of mainstream OSes can be found on Wikipedia. A more detailed timeline and hierarchy of UNIX and similar OSes can be found at the UNIX history page.

Introduction

Informal operating system development(OSDev) has become a growing hobby and past-time in the last several years. While many developer that frequent http://www.osdev.org] are involved in a college level computer degree project more still seem consider osdev'ing a enjoyable past-time. The upswing in os development may be connected to the availability of hardware documentation that the Internet has helped provide. Also possibly a factor is the popularity of Linux. Linux was not the first operating system that provided it's source code but it is arguably the most popular. Since many people are aware that Linux is open source they are more inclined to look at how an OS functions. Linux itself was created after it's original author, Linus Torvalds, viewed the source code for Andrew Tannenbaum's Minix OS. Linux has become large enough that it is now a large commercial project with several companies providing large amounts of investment. While Linux can be considered commercial today it wasn't originally, to quote a 1991 newsgroup posting from Linus Hello everybody out there using Minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones..

About the word 'OSDev'

The use of OSDev as an abbreviation for Operating System Development seems to have started well before osdev-related newsgroup traffic started in 1996. Prior to it's use with hobbyist development, OSDev also stood for other things; mainly On Screen Device. OSDev is now a common enough term than the wikipedia article on osdev is about operating systtem development.

Timeline

Informal operating system development that didn't directly connect to an academic project started to take off in October of 1996.

September/October 1996: Malte Kroeger created a mailing list(os-list@aros.net) that grew to 30+ people in size.

September/October 1996: The os-list mailing list discussions were moved over to the comp.os.misc newsgroup.

September 10,1996: Michael Hobbs posts a message on comp.os.misc that stated I'm beginning to believe that there exists at least 1 OS for each person who reads this group. This pattern holds true 10 years later.

September 12, 1996: It is suggested on comp.os.misc that a dedicated os development newsgroup be created. Some of the suggested names include: comp.os.design, comp.os.homebrew.develop, comp.os.development, and alt.hobby.osdev. Two names are agreeded on; comp.os.development and comp.os.assembly. Eventually the names would change to use alt instead of comp. original discussion

1997: A web based message board was created at www.effect.net.au/os-dev/wwwboard/wwwboard.htm to host osdev discussions.

1997: One of the first OS project lists is created that contains OSes built by single developers. There were 20 projects and Linux was listed as it was still considered a small OS. Internet Archive mirror

September 11, 1997: One year after being suggested the newsgroups alt.os.development and alt.os.assembly are created. NASM is recommended as the assembler of choice. Archive of the original announcement and group descriptions

August 2000: The http://www.osdev.org is created as a place to contain os development information.

October 18, 2006: The two largest os development forums, Mega-Tokyo and OSDev.org, are merged in to one single forum creating the single largest community of operating system developers working on different OSes. The original os development newsgroups are eclipsed by several orders of magnitude in traffic.