SymbOS! (http://www.symbos.de/) This really has to be the most impressive OS I've ever seen. It's a true multitasking microkernel OS with a very usable and familiar GUI running on an 8-bit computer. It supports huge hard drives (up to 128 GB), music and movie playback and it does it all on CPUs as slow as 3.5 MHz... Just imagine if coders of this quality were writing PC OSes...
I don't actually use it for real (no actual MSX or CPC hardware). I AM working on writing the manual for it though.
It looks essentially like Windows 3.11 mixed with Windows 9x/ME but in like 8 bit mode...
So what exactly would the benefit of this retina burning OS be?
It's interesting but I doubt it'll get anywhere.
The Z80 is actually quite heavily used in embedded devices. While the GUI may be primarily something to show off, the actual multitasking microkernel could be quite useful in an embedded context.
Also, I hardly consider it retina-burning. t actually looks quite good, especially if you change the default pallete.
Why spend all that effort to take a couple of steps backwards (more than a couple of steps actually)? The cost of hardware has come down so much and the processing power of modern chips are getting more and more advanced everyday. whats the point to using, and developing for old legacy hardware? is this just a proof-of-concept project?
...its great that some can do that and all...but why would I use something of inferior graphics quality when I could just keep using linux and have a 1280x800 and 1024x768 res with out any problems...its not like you are going to ever go "gee...I have this 3.5mhz computer and I need an os for it" maybe like 10 years ago someone would have done that but today if you don't have a computer that is at LEAST 500mhz you are basically SOL.