Liam,

> As I understand it -- please correct me if I am wrong -- SqueakNOS is
> C-based and only supports x86.

CogNOS is a bit more dependent on C than SqueakNOS, but neither is
really built on C.

The bulk of the code is written in Slang, which is a restricted subset
of Smalltalk-80. This gets translated to C which is then compiled to
whatever processor you use but it would be a relatively small project to
eliminate the C step.

If you want to use some of the VM extensions that happen to be written
in C instead of Slang then you would indeed need C.

The drivers are written in normal Smalltalk-80 and so don't depend at
all on the x86 (or C). But they do mean you can use only a particular
Ethernet card or a specific interrupt chip. You need PS/2 keyboard and
mouse. So I would say it only supports PCs, but the processor can be any
one you like. That is for the interpreter. If you want to use the Cog
compiler then the processor must be ARM32, ARM64, x86, AMD64 or MIPS
since those are currently the ones for which code generators have been
implemented.

> My suggestion for that OS is the Oberon system, specifically the
> version called A2. [...]

In the early 1990s a friend saw that I was designing Smalltalk computers
and suggested that I should consider Oberon. I was already familiar with
the older Lilith project and was happy to try it on the 386 machine I
had at the time. While I liked it a lot I felt it was too static to grow
very far. I felt the same thing about the C++ based BeOS and though they
had some great results and amazing applications I don't think I was
wrong about that.

-- Jecel