ChaOS

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ChaOS is an organic operating system. It is not a linux derivative. One boostrap file + one OS image file, any BIOS boot device, including USB.

Details of ChaOS demos are below

Instructions for downloading and making a ChaOS boot CD are here

ChaOS is a 32-bit unsegmented executable image, relocatable anywhere in 4Gb linear memory. Processes are also 32-bit unsegmented images, with type-safe dynamic linkage enforced at run-time, preserving system integrity when critical operating system structures are revised.

Latest: MP utility to launch ChaOS .XECs on APs. Longfilenames switched on. December 2009 Demo now uploaded. November 2009 Demo with graphics and native VESA debugger. Development moving to 64-bit, on i7-920 Quad-core Nehalem. ChaOS running on Atom N270 and 330. EDD partition table, boot sector and bootstrap, so ChaOS can boot from anywhere on a hard disk. ChaOS running on Intel Atom 330 with RTL8102E lan. ChaOS uses GUID/EFI partition tables, multiboot can handle 128 bootable systems (partitions) on one hard disk. SATA drive support using PATA legacy mode. UDMA default hard disk mode. Multiple processor capability established.

It’s capable bootstrap supports 128 partitions per boot drive, with independent filesystems if required. Rebuilding a bootable image from scratch takes less than 30 seconds (3GHz processor). Since 2005 ChaOS has been refined using a native compiler with inline assembler, and so is independent of bulky mainstream operating systems and compilers. As a result, changes to the operating system are incremental. Programs are linked using a global type space, so all function calls (including dynamic links, operating system calls) are type-safe at run-time. Incremental changes to the operating system which impact older software will cause a type-safe link failure, thus preventing unsafe software from loading. (Usually all that is required is to recompile the affected module - MAKE <project>). Code and data about 1Mb, source code about 4Mb (around 80 source files plus around 80 header files).

I didn’t get broadband until 2006, then became aware that ChaOS isn’t a unique choice of name for an operating system. Most are Linux flavours as it’s a neat name. Still my ChaOS has been around for longer than most - but not as long as Ethertype 0x804, and IP protocol 16, both of which bear the name Chaos and have been around since the dawn of the internet. Still what’s in an acronym? My company has been CTPP since 1986, but recently someone decided to call their CTalk preprocessor CTPP too. 

Current ChaOS development is leaning towards the internet, I am experimenting with simple native ChaOS servers. 

Operational ChaOS Servers:  (18/01/2010)     These servers are experimental, and not always online

TELSRV:     TELNET chaos.ctpp.co.uk (82.68.176.217)  experimental TELNET server, on IBM Thinkcentre running ChaOS behind a Vigor 2800G router. Logon with user anonymous and password password. At present only three user commands are running, ? <enter> displays list of valid commands, ver <enter> display the version of ChaOS over which the server is running, quit <enter> to end the session.

HTPSRV:    http://chaos.ctpp.co.uk  (working partial mirror of ctpp.co.uk, running on the IBM Thinkcentre alongside TELSRV)

FTPSRV:    Native ChaOS FTP server to run from 1/12/2009. All access is password protected until testing is complete. Public FTP will be at ftp://chaos.ctpp.co.uk.

ChaOS Projects (last update 18/01/2010):                                   Other Projects                Brief History  

DOS/Windows Projects (last update 2/9/08):  

ChaOS - A brief history

ChaOS is a result of frustration with the Microsoft thread of operating system design, a frustration which built during the period 1985 to 1995, when PC hardware and software development was frenetic. During that time, I first wrote accounting and order processing software for my small textile business, based in the North of England. Then some software for creating and editing repeating patterns for continuous textile prints. By 1990, I was shoving our dyestuffs through reluctant piezo-electric inkjet printers to create textile transfers, mimicking our bulk continuous transfer prints. At the time Sharp Electronics(UK) took some interest, and a brief appearance of the Lotti Design System on the BBC Tomorrow&rsqou;s World programme (Christmas 1990) rounded off that year. Sharp Electronics asked me to write a Windows driver for their JX-100 handy scanner. This was completed (SharpScan100) by March 1991, but I found Windows programming to be expensive - several hundred pounds at the time for the development kits needed.

Keeping a custom software package working through those years was a nightmare, through 8086,80286 80386, to 80486 and Pentium, upgrade your PC and every time my software needed a rewrite. Things began to stabilise around 1995, with 80486 processors now including a maths chip, but by this time I was thoroughly cheesed off with the DOS/Windows rat-race.

By 1995 I had bought a factory for the textile business, and had two more software projects in mind. First, a radio-frequency remote control system for our main Cobden Chadwick print machine, and a CO2 laser CNC to cut rollers for the Cobden Chadwick.. My Windows experience had taught me that this was an unsuitable operating system for real-time interaction with the outside world. In a bookshop I found Richard Burgess’ book &lsqou;Developing Your Own 32-bit Operating System’, and thought I might be able to modify the system described in the book (MMURTL) to run the print machine.

I soon had MMURTL running, and was astonished by the speed at which things could happen on a computer in native 32-bit linear mode. But programming MMURTL was not easy, as it required a deep understanding of PC hardware, something which I lacked (having been protected from the hardware by BIOS, DOS and Windows programmers’ interfaces). Furthermore, the compilers supplied to build MMURTL were creaky. But Richard Burgess did include the source code to the compilers in his distribution disk. I recompiled these using my now favourite Watcom ‘C++’ v10.0 into 32-bit DOS4GW programs, decided I could do better, and wrote a one-pass ‘C’ compiler from scratch with inline assembler and floating point support. I started inventing my own flat 32-bit executable format to play around with on a DOS4GW loader program which I called DBG.

With a bootstrap loader drawn from studying the MMURTL loader, I created my first, home-grown bootable floppy disk. ChaOS was born.

By 1997, ChaOS was running the RF remote control system on the Cobden Chadwick print machine, and has now booted up each workday morning from the same hard disk for eleven years.

Since then I have built my laser CNC, then learnt to fly aeroplanes, which caused me to forget about ChaOS for while. I have been a bit slow to embrace the internet, discovering Linux in 2004 - had I explored Linux sooner maybe ChaOS would never have been written. But having started ChaOS, and enjoyed the freedom of complete control over my computers, I find Linux too restrictive.

In 2003 I started playing around installling ChaOS on portable PCs, Toshiba Librettos and then Fujitsu Stylistic pen tablets. It has been great fun writing the GPS software for my electronic amateur pilot’s kneeboard.

In 2005 I posted a floppy disk download of ChaOS on the internet.

In September 2008 I began building this website.

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The old ChaOS2001 webpages are here, looking a bit dated, I'll probably scrap them soon. Or you may wish to contact us