This tutorial will show you how to create your own headless operating system that runs on all the existing ones to.
It's written as a textbook C program with a main() function that just prints a spinning deathstar. Cosmopolitan Libc makes this easy because linking this library causes GCC or Clang to build your program as an αcτµαlly pδrταblε εxεcµταblε that runs on BIOS, Linux, MacOS, Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.
Run the following in the Linux console:
wget https://justine.lol/cosmopolitan/deathstar.c
wget https://justine.lol/cosmopolitan/cosmopolitan.zip
unzip -o cosmopolitan.zip
gcc -static -nostdlib -nostdinc -fno-pie -no-pie -mno-red-zone \
-fno-omit-frame-pointer \
-o deathstar.com.dbg deathstar.c -fuse-ld=bfd -Wl,-T,ape.lds \
-include cosmopolitan.h crt.o ape.o cosmopolitan.a
objcopy -S -O binary deathstar.com.dbg deathstar.com
./deathstar.com
qemu-system-x86_64 -m 16 -nographic -fda deathstar.com
Please note if you want to build the above program on Windows or MacOS then you need to install an x86_64-pc-linux-gnu toolchain beforehand. See the Compiling on Windows tutorial.
deathstar.com (24kb)
/**
* @fileoverview Death Star Operating System
* Borrowed from Rosetta Code.
*/
#define FRAMERATE 23.976
#define WRITE(s) write(STDOUT_FILENO, s, strlen(s))
#define MIN(X, Y) ((Y) > (X) ? (X) : (Y))
#define MAX(X, Y) ((Y) < (X) ? (X) : (Y))
#define ARRAYLEN(A) \
((sizeof(A) / sizeof(*(A))) / ((unsigned)!(sizeof(A) % sizeof(*(A)))))
struct Sphere {
long double cx, cy, cz, r;
};
static const char *kShades[] = {
"\e[48;5;232m ", "\e[48;5;233m ", "\e[48;5;234m ", "\e[48;5;235m ",
"\e[48;5;236m ", "\e[48;5;237m ", "\e[48;5;238m ", "\e[48;5;239m ",
"\e[48;5;240m ", "\e[48;5;241m ", "\e[48;5;242m ", "\e[48;5;243m ",
"\e[48;5;244m ", "\e[48;5;245m ", "\e[48;5;246m ", "\e[48;5;247m ",
"\e[48;5;248m ", "\e[48;5;249m ", "\e[48;5;250m ", "\e[48;5;251m ",
"\e[48;5;252m ", "\e[48;5;253m ", "\e[48;5;254m ", "\e[48;5;255m ",
};
static jmp_buf jb_;
static long double light_[3] = {-50, 0, 50};
static struct Sphere pos_ = {11, 11, 11, 11};
static struct Sphere neg_ = {1, 1, -4, 11};
static void OnCtrlC(int sig) {
longjmp(jb_, 1);
}
static void Normalize(long double v[3]) {
long double len;
len = 1 / sqrtl(v[0] * v[0] + v[1] * v[1] + v[2] * v[2]);
v[0] *= len;
v[1] *= len;
v[2] *= len;
}
static long double Dot(const long double x[3], const long double y[3]) {
return fabsl(x[0] * y[0] + x[1] * y[1] + x[2] * y[2]);
}
/* check if a ray (x,y, -inf)->(x, y, inf) hits a sphere; if so, return
the intersecting z values. z1 is closer to the eye */
static int HitSphere(struct Sphere *s, long double x, long double y,
long double z[2]) {
long double zsq;
x -= s->cx;
y -= s->cy;
zsq = s->r * s->r - (x * x + y * y);
if (zsq < 0) {
return 0;
} else {
zsq = sqrtl(zsq);
z[0] = s->cz - zsq;
z[1] = s->cz + zsq;
return 1;
}
}
static void DrawSphere(long double k, long double ambient) {
int i, j, hit_result;
long double x, y, vec[3], zb[2], zs[2];
for (i = floorl(pos_.cy - pos_.r); i <= ceill(pos_.cy + pos_.r); i++) {
y = i + .5L;
for (j = floorl(pos_.cx - 2 * pos_.r); j <= ceill(pos_.cx + 2 * pos_.r);
j++) {
x = .5L * (j - pos_.cx) + .5L + pos_.cx;
if (!HitSphere(&pos_, x, y, zb)) {
/* ray lands in blank space, draw bg */
hit_result = 0;
} else if (!HitSphere(&neg_, x, y, zs)) {
/* ray hits pos_ sphere but not neg_, draw pos_ sphere surface */
hit_result = 1;
} else if (zs[0] > zb[0]) {
/* ray hits both, but pos_ front surface is closer */
hit_result = 1;
} else if (zs[1] > zb[1]) {
/* pos_ sphere surface is inside neg_ sphere, show bg */
hit_result = 0;
} else if (zs[1] > zb[0]) {
/* back surface on neg_ sphere is inside pos_ sphere,
the only place where neg_ sphere surface will be shown */
hit_result = 2;
} else {
hit_result = 1;
}
switch (hit_result) {
case 0:
WRITE("\e[0m ");
continue;
case 1:
vec[0] = x - pos_.cx;
vec[1] = y - pos_.cy;
vec[2] = zb[0] - pos_.cz;
break;
default:
vec[0] = neg_.cx - x;
vec[1] = neg_.cy - y;
vec[2] = neg_.cz - zs[1];
break;
}
Normalize(vec);
WRITE(kShades[MIN(
ARRAYLEN(kShades) - 1,
MAX(0, lroundl((1 - (powl(Dot(light_, vec), k) + ambient)) *
(ARRAYLEN(kShades) - 1))))]);
}
WRITE("\e[0m\n");
}
fflush(stdout);
}
int main() {
long double ang;
struct termios old;
WRITE("\e[?25l");
if (!setjmp(jb_)) {
sigaction(SIGINT, &(struct sigaction){.sa_handler = OnCtrlC}, NULL);
ang = 0;
for (;;) {
WRITE("\e[H");
light_[1] = cosl(ang * 2);
sincosl(ang, &light_[0], &light_[2]);
Normalize(light_);
ang += .05L;
DrawSphere(1.5L, .01L);
usleep(1.L / FRAMERATE * 1e6);
}
}
WRITE("\e[0m\e[H\e[J\e[?25h");
return 0;
}