(#kaiqxgq) @prologic@twtxt.net This is a really cool project, that’s for sure. 👌

(#p4hxpnq) @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org … I was about to write “it really is worse where you live”, then I heard the first bang out on the street. 🤣

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-maintainer/

(#gslvc3q) @prologic@twtxt.net Oh! 🤔

(#gslvc3q) @prologic@twtxt.net That might be a challenge, at least in 16-bit Real Mode: The OS follows the model of COM files on DOS, i.e. the size of the binary cannot exceed 64 KiB and heap+stack of the running program will have to fit into that same 64 KiB. 😅 (The memory layout is very rigid, each process gets such a 64 KiB slice.)

And in 64-bit Long Mode, there is no “kernel” yet. The thing in the video is literally just a small bare-metal program.

But some day, maybe. 😃

(#gslvc3q) Seeing this run on real hardware is so satisfying, even if it’s just a small example. 😅

https://movq.de/v/ec46b8cf99/netbook.mp4

My little toy operating system from last year runs in 16-bit Real Mode (like DOS). Since I’ve recently figured out how to switch to 64-bit Long Mode right after BIOS boot, I now have a little program that performs this switch on my toy OS. It will load and run any x86-64 program, assuming it’s freestanding, a flat binary, and small enough (< 128 KiB code, only uses the first 2 MiB of memory).

Here I’m running a little C program (compiled using normal GCC, no Watcom trickery):

https://movq.de/v/b27ced6dcb/los86%2D64.mp4

https://movq.de/v/b27ced6dcb/c.png

Next steps could include:

• Use Rust instead of C for that 64-bit program?
  
• Provide interrupt service routines. (At the moment, it just keeps interrupts disabled.)

In case you haven’t seen it yet:

Matt Godbolt’s “Advent of Compiler Optimisations”!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2HVqYf7If8cY4wLk7JUQ2f0JXY_xMQm2

(#axubhsq) @prologic@twtxt.net And I froze my ass off yesterday at -5°C and strong winds. 🤣

(#xpo7apa) @prologic@twtxt.net 🎄 Merry Christmas and stuff 😅🎅

(#h2bah2a) @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Lovely! We also just had some snow. 😃 Not a lot, but still. 😅

(Lol, I totally read that as “rootfs”. 🤪)

(#h2bah2a) @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Oooh, nice! ⛄ We only have cold stormy weather over here. 🥴

(#vmmzfia) Oh, that’s cute: https://movq.de/v/046fb6ee70/s.png DuckDuckGo puts a little helmet on the duck when you search for Skyrim. (Katria is a Skyrim character.)

(#jsy4ega) @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Thanks. 😅 (Do I say that? The WM can’t answer. 🤣)

Mastodon has a “Wrapstodon 2025” now, showing you a “wrap up” of the year. Of course, a pointless funny shitpost was my most “successful” post in 2025. 😂

https://movq.de/v/b9cf9e3ca0/s.png

(#c6rrdzq) @prologic@twtxt.net I’ve been awake at that time, didn’t notice anything. 🤔 Where was that BGP analyzer again … 😅 There’s a tool that keeps track of these things, right? I forgot what it was.

(#c6rrdzq) @prologic@twtxt.net Hm, I didn’t notice anything. Perhaps I was asleep? 😅

(#dddn3ja) @prologic@twtxt.net You write so much code … it’s incredible. 😅

This feels useful: Rust’s Block Pattern

(#jta6w7a) @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org These tables get shuffled around every time your OS switches to another process. It’s crazy that so much is going on behind the scenes.

(#jta6w7a) @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I was surprised by that as well. 😅 I thought these were features that you can use, but no, you must do all this.

By the way, I now fixed the issue that I mentioned at the end and it works on the netbook now. 🥳

https://www.uninformativ.de/blog/postings/2025-12-21/0/netbook.jpg

(#huts53q) @shinyoukai@neko.laidback.moe But I thought Alpine was one of the good distro’s left. 😢 What’s it doing wrong?

(#dddn3ja) @kiwu@twtxt.net Assembly is usually the most low-level programming language that you can get. Typical programming languages like Python or Go are a thick layer of abstraction over what the CPU actually does, but with Assembler you get to see it all and you get full control. (With lots of caveats and footnotes. 😅)

I’m interested in the boot process, i.e. what exactly happens when you turn on your computer. In that area, using Assembler is a must, because you really need that fine-grained control here.

(#knxgcuq) @kiwu@twtxt.net Finally doing some Assembler again. 😅 Just a tiny little bit at least.

(#iaunzca) @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Yeah, well, given that I didn’t need this for such a long time, it’s probably not an essential tool. 😅

I’ve often wanted to have an outline of text documents, though, and tagbar/ctags can do that as well:

https://movq.de/v/3c6d1a13d6/tagbar-md.png

https://movq.de/v/abc58e6d66/tagbar-latex.png

This isn’t as powerful as the “Navigator” tool in StarOffice/LibreOffice (which can be used to rearrange the document), but still pretty useful:

https://www.uninformativ.de/blog/postings/2024-05-23/0/so31.mp4

(#7sw2ifq) @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Awww, 03.jpg. 😍 Yeah, we also had a nice sunset. I was on the road, though, so no photos.

(#iaunzca) Ooooooooooh! If your .vimrc is as messy as mine, you’ll be pleased to learn that Tagbar can show a sorted list of all key mappings:

https://movq.de/v/0f37d13a01/s.png

🤯