Osmin RTOS

A brief on the Osmin operating system kernel is available in the preprint (pp. 61–64). I apologize for this redirect. While the article is under review, it is simpler to not excerpt portions here.

Osmin kernel release notes

The Osmin source code fits entirely in os.a because XA|36 presently expects program source to be in one file. See the makefile in the same directory for more hints. All this could be documented better.

Osmin presently loads three short user programs clock, color, and groot and runs them concurrently. All three write to pvio-files/file-00pts1 which is ordinarily symlinked to a tty. Osmin writes console messages to pvio-files/file-000pts, which is also symlinked, and any errors detected by bootload.a (which loads Osmin) are sent to the same destination. The makefile has a TTY variable that should point where you want XA|36 output to go. You may need to tweak makefile and the symlinks to reflect whatever ttys you have on hand to see the results.

Once you sort out your ttys, make os.all from the netsim directory should assemble and start the operating system, bootloader, and its tests. If you don’t need everything reassembled, a make os should run the test.

The test programs api.a, echo.a, and user1.a have no particular merit and are in flux. echo.a is the only program as of March 2024 that reads keyboard input.