>> (Some of you may remember I
>> once set out on a misguided quest to "write my own OS". I read up on
>> some of this stuff.)
>
> That does sound like an intriguing challenge, provided you don't set out
> to design the best OS that has ever been.

Rather, I set out to design an OS that doesn't work like Unix, and 
doesn't work like Windows. (Seemingly all extent OS designs are based on 
one or the other - but I remember a time before that...)

> If you get to the point where you can compile, link and run a "Hello
> World" C program on that platform, that's certainly good enough for
> starters.

Again, my goal was to design an OS where nothing is ever written in C, 
but rather written in safe higher-level languages with don't have buffer 
overrun exploits all over the place.

> And if PC hardware seems too messy and non-standardized (which most
> certainly is the case), something like the Raspberry Pi might be an
> interesting target.

The Raspberry Pi didn't exist ten years ago, but now that I think about 
it, that *would* be an interesting target...

> Then again, why design a whole OS if I'd only want to run a very limited
> set of programs on it anyway... it can't be too complicated to build a
> POV-Ray version that runs directly atop the BIOS, can it? :-P

The key problem with writing your own OS is that it's almost impossible 
to debug it! Not if you run it on real hardware, anyway. Last I checked, 
most VM software isn't really designed for this kind of thing either...

It's probably much, much easier to design something like the Java VM, 
and then write your own proto-OS that runs inside that. And if you ever 
get anywhere with that, *then* try targeting bare metal...

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