LoseThos 6.19h

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LoseThos is for programming as entertainment. It empowers programmers with kernel privilege because it's
fun. It allows full access to everything because it's fun. It has no bureaucracy because it's fun. It's the way it is by choice because it's fun. Don't you hate ninnies who harp on the point of overusing an admin account? Not having kernel privilege, for a programmer, is like not having an admin password on your own computer!

LoseThos is in no way a Windows or Linux wannabe -- that would be pointless. LoseThos is not trying to win a prize for low resource usage or run on pathetic hardware. Low line count is a goal, though. It's 100,000 lines of code including a 64-bit compiler, tools and a graphics library.

A bigger goal is making applications low line count. "Hello World" takes one line of code. You can put
graphics on the screen with two lines of code. You don't need to include header files or mess with
namespaces. It has a scoping system, though, with tasks inheriting symbols of parents and all system-wide
symbols and code in the Adam (as in Eve) task's heap.

LoseThos uses some tricks to keep line count down, like processing whole files. It has a flat, identity mapped virtual-to-physical address map, the same for all tasks. It updates the whole screen 60 times a second instead of trying to keep track of what has changed. The most demanding application is a full screen video game, so it might as well be optimize for that instead of trying to get idle low. It uses the same compiler for the command line as for programs and it uses the same viewer/editor for the command line, help system, forms and dialogs.

LoseThos is not trying to be bullet-proof -- it's for home computers, not mainframes where many users suffer
when a crash occurs. It reboots in 2 seconds plus BIOS time. It's no worse than a hung task in Windows or
Linux. I know people obsess on this topic. You know how the last 20% of a project takes 80% of the time?
LoseThos is an order of magnitude simpler by not trying to be bullet-proof.

There are two programmers who will work on LoseThos -- the user and I. It is for programming as
entertainment, and I mean that. Why would you buy a 3rd party program to run on a system with crappy
graphics that can crash? There are no scalablity issues. Imagine LoseThos more similar in usage to a 8-bit
non-networked home computer's ROM than to Windows or Linux, though, it is 64-bit and far more than that.
You are free to access anything documented or undocumented in the system source code -- have fun! I have
fond memories of the days when average users typed-in programs from magazines and tinkered with them.

LoseThos was designed from scratch with a clean slate and has no compatibility with anything else. Source
code is ASCII plus binary graphics data. It has a new language roughly based C/C++. It's more than C and
less than C++ so, maybe, it's C+. I took every opportunity to improve things once I made a clean break with the past. That's another reason LoseThos has value -- it is innovative.

I started with a command line like this:
Dir("*.*");

I added default parameters from C++:
Dir();

I said, "parentheses are stupid."
Dir;

Now, I have a language which looks a little like pascal. It also doesn't have a main() routine -- any statement
outside a function executes immediately, in order. The command line feeds straight into the compiler (not an
interpreter) and it doesn't have that bullshit errno crap for return values -- command line commands are regular
C+ functions.

Contrary to what you might think, LoseThos is modern. I wrote a 64-bit compiler and made support for
MultiCore. Everybody else does SMP which is great if you wish to run two apps at the same time, but what
about one? Instead, LoseThos does master-slave MultiCore, fully under the programmer's control.

I don't know what everybody else is doing about 32-bit signed displacements, but I'm putting all code in the
lowest 2Gig address range and data above in a 64-bit address space.

LoseThos is primarily for making video games. It has no networking or Internet support. As far as I'm
concerned, that would be reinventing the wheel and you can do that instead by dual booting another operating system. Similarly, it's not for desktop publishing or multimedia.

When it comes to budgeting, many people buy too much house and find themselves always stressed. When it comes to video games, professional companies push the limits and struggle the whole time. With low resolution and a modern 64-bit multicore machine, you can write modest games with orders of magnitude less effort than a professional company with a staff of a hundred.

PROMISES:

1) LoseThos will always run everything in kernel mode. There is no user mode. All programs will have full
access to memory, I/O ports, instructions, etc. Yes, this means you can crash LoseThos very easily. Yes, this means no security
2) LoseThos will always "identity map" virtual memory. (Virtual addresses are the same as physical.)
3) LoseThos will never have full networking support with an Internet browser, etc.
4) LoseThos will always have one video mode, 640x480 by 16 colors, unless this mode might become
unavailable on computers in the future. You can assume the screen will be the same for everybody. There's
plenty of CPU for very little screen to update -- only 1/37th the power needed for a 1600x1200x24 bit mode.
5) The LoseThos operating system will be free, but I might sell applications or support, or possibly do adware.
6) LoseThos will be 100% open source with all source included, unless device drivers or something can only be included with non-disclosure agreements.
7) All function args and returns will be 64-bit -- no plans for C++.
8) LoseThos documents are not for printing -- they're dynamic and intended for the screen. There will always
be just one font, a fixed-width font, and I do not have plans for Unicode, just ASCII.
9) LoseThos is not for multimedia. Games will be created by programmers, not artists -- calculated sounds
and images. Who has time to twiddle pixels all day or who owns a 1930's radio show recording studio!

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Program Informations

 Developer LoseThos

Price And Size

 5.6MB  Freeware

Date Add

December 3, 2010

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LoseThos 6.19h