I've been reimplementing my from-scratch live-updating postfix shell to really from scratch (no more OS kernel), while at the same time rewriting the prototype with lots of tests and actually giving the language some sort of rigorous basis. No demos yet, but in the meantime here's Conway's Game of Life running on baremetal Mu.

https://archive.org/details/akkartik-mu-life-2021-02-13

Sources: http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/apps/life.mu.html

Main project page: https://github.com/akkartik/mu

Standing offer: I would love to collaborate on a computing stack for a non-English language by forking https://github.com/akkartik/mu. It's very barebones and not afraid of radical experiments. It already has an API for rendering arbitrary UTF-8 strings and returning arbitrarily-sized bounding boxes for what was rendered. So the work is mostly creating glyphs for combinations of codepoints. And rules for segmenting. And lots of testing.

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It took a while, but I've finally ported a pre-existing Mu program to baremetal (not atop Linux): an RPN calculator.

This was hard, purely because of cursor management. I have a greater appreciation for everything that display hardware and terminal emulators provide for text mode. Mu so far puts the onus on the programmer.

http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/baremetal/rpn.mu.html

In the end it's interesting to visualize the changes I had to make:

vim -d apps/rpn.mu baremetal/rpn.mu

They're entirely in main; the rest is unchanged.

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I built a game of "snakes", but it came out more like an etch-a-sketch 😄

http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/baremetal/ex7.mu.html

Play it on any non-windows:

git clone https://github.com/akkartik/mu
cd mu
./translate_mu_baremetal_emulated baremetal/ex7.mu
qemu-system-i386 disk.img

h/j/k/l to draw.

---

I made an art! On a computer without an OS.

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I've been trying to visualize the default 256-color palette I get on baremetal.

http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/baremetal/vga_palette.html

To my eyes it looks like I can/should just live in the first 128 colors.

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A more international interface for rendering text

New 2-minute video:
https://archive.org/details/akkartik-2min-2021-01-12

You get just one fixed screen resolution: 1024x768, 256 colors. Widely available on modern machines, no drivers needed.

You get just one fixed-width bitmap font. No bold/italics, no anti-aliasing.

BUT it won't make assumptions about English and left-to-right order. I eventually want anybody to be able to customize it to their language.

Main project page: https://github.com/akkartik/mu

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Rendering text atop baremetal

Mu can now render text atop baremetal x86.

Try clicking around from http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/apps/ex5.mu.html

The boot-up machine code reads a few sectors from disk, configures a keyboard handler, and loads a bitmap font (2KB for ASCII, with the option for more).

I use GNU Unifont. I believe that means Mu is now GPL v2. So stated. IANAL and I try not to think about software IP. But a font? Copyright seems reasonable there.

Next up: a text editor!

https://github.com/akkartik/mu

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Towards running Mu without Linux

All Mu really needs so far is to print to screen and read from the keyboard. Here's a 2-minute video about achieving that:

https://archive.org/details/akkartik-2min-2020-12-24

It seems such a small thing. But I needed lots of help, as you can see from the additions to my credits.

Merry Christmas to all! What a beautiful world.

Project page: https://github.com/akkartik/mu

More context: https://mastodon.social/@akkartik/104896128141863951

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Editing functions in the Mu shell

https://archive.org/details/akkartik-2min-2020-12-06

Long delay since my last video. Printing floating-point numbers is really hard. I'm still half-assing it.

As a follow-up to my previous post, I'm tightening focus to two threads:

1. These Mu shell experiments, and
2. An extremely skeletal OS to drop the Linux kernel dependency.

Deprioritized for now:

1. Other processors: RISCV, ARM, RPi, etc.
2. Graphics, mouse, etc. Device priorities for the OS are disk then ethernet.

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Feeling low today.

Damn hands are acting up again. RSI. Perhaps I should give up on Advent.

Mu's compromises:

• Just one instruction set. New processors need reworking. And I have RSI.
• Text mode. Hopefully a graphics stack can slot in underneath without needing rework.
• No pointer device. Apps are starting to make this assumption. Adding a mouse will require rework. And I have RSI.

:/ Constraints I consider "temporary" are perhaps not.

Want less. — The Buddha

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#adventofcode in Mu

I seem to be settling into a pattern of solving these on alternate days. Late for one round, early for the next.

Day 4 solutions (spoiler alert):

http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/apps/advent2020/4a.mu.html

http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/apps/advent2020/4b.mu.html (utterly ghastly)

2.5 hours. 2 machine-code bugs found, 1 new (terribly named) library primitive added: https://github.com/akkartik/mu/commit/18d5bab2b66

Day 5 solutions:

http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/apps/advent2020/5a.mu.html

http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/apps/advent2020/5b.mu.html

30 minutes. No new Mu bugs found.

Project page: https://github.com/akkartik/mu

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