this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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Is this useful for hobbyists besides poking around and seeking the design philosophy at work back then?
Like would there be any advantage or reason to implement this in a home project? For example maybe that it's lightweight and has some rare compatibility or anything like that?
I think its interesting from a historical perspective.
I imagine people will examine the code, find easter eggs, bugs, unknown features, amusing comments etc.
I look forward to seeing what is found.
Looking forward to the "when I wrote this code, only god and I knew how it works. Now only god knows" comments.
It is useful if you want to learn how to create an OS from scratch as a hobby. Modern open source systems like Linux are ridiculously complex and studying Linux kernel code is not something a newcomer should do. Studying old and simple systems like MS DOS is a better alternative, which will help you grasp the basics of how OS functions. And once you have these basics, you can move on to more complex systems.
That's a cool use case. I like that idea
There are a lot of decades old embedded systems out there. Every so often you hear about a big company still relying on floppy disks and other old tech, including major railways and airplane companies. Having the source code will help with debugging better than having to disassemble or other reverse engineering.
ATC is a famous one of those lol
Maybe as a reference, if you want to build another abomination?