(Another) Temporary Halting of DremDOS Development

This Time It's Bad

The filesystem driver for COSMOS is, as we all know, very unstable. However, it's come to the point where not even the user can manually create directories or files. As such, I have to halt DremDOS development once again for a while. Once the filesystem driver is more stable, I can continue. I might push what I have now to the repository, but don't count on it.

Other Projects to Get Excited About

Luckily, DremDOS isn't my only project I'm working on right now. I will start posting periodic updates for my other projects such as DremJS, OTNServer, and a silly new Linux distribution that will use DremJS instead of a traditional window manager (more on this later). Don't expect a weekly update, though, as I've been too busy to program for often days at a time.

The Future of DremJS

So far, I have a roadmap for DremJS leading up to 0.2.0b. There are many fun little (and big) features to play with in the next 3 updates! Some of these features are features that should have been there a long time ago such as a file browser and notepad application, which were only made possible with PHP. Some other big features include a phone/tablet mode, a package manager, and a setup.

What About That Linux Distro?

That is where DremJS 0.2.0b comes in. As DremJS becomes more advanced, I realized that it's finally started to become more and more like what I had envisioned - its very own operating system that you can access from a web browser. However, because of how advanced it's gotten, it could even be possible to make a Linux distribution. The soul purpose of this distro is to be a web browser that accesses a local web server which hosts DremJS. At that point, it could include a web app to act as a terminal emulator and essentially be a desktop environment. That being said, it might not be able to run X applications despite using X to function. The main benefit, of course, being that it would be easier to port to different platforms as the only thing that would have to be done to make it work is to include X, a web browser, and the initial setup page (which will download the OS version of DremJS) in a buildroot environment. However, as I haven't done much experimentation with the idea, I can't give many details on it. What I can say is that it will more than likely become the next DremOS.

But Can It Mobile?

I might have accidentally bought the PinePhone, which was pretty much how I started working out this idea when I discovered it a few months ago. Now I'm just waiting for it to arrive. Whoops!

The Future of OTNServer

OTNServer has been stuck in a limbo state for a while due to the limitations of the programming language I started writing it in - Batch. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to write it in Batch, so I'm currently rewriting it in C#. When this is done, I will start implementing many fun features, such as the ability to connect over a serial port, which will be what future OTNMCP implementations will use. For example, I received a Color Maximite 2 in the mail recently and have been playing around with BASIC. Eventually, it will be able to print using the serial port that's built into the power input (and probably through the GPIO pins if you don't want to plug it into a computer)! For that reason, though, I will also have to create a new word processor for it. This will be a simple application which will read and output Markdown documents, which will then be seamlessly converted to PDF on the server.