I dont see why people make such a big deal about third party os's being "meaningless" They're no more "meaningless than the thousand usb drivers you find at ticalc.org, no more "meaningless" than the Omnicalc libs, no more "meaningless" than DCS. Its no more difficult to send a program or app to a calculator than an os. It's more of a fear of change among some programmers who are familiar with how the tios works. Make an os, release a few great applications for it, and sooner or later people will become curious, toy with it, and before you know it, it could be the next craze. Not to mention, its a lot more satisfying to write an os.

I don't know about easier, but I understand what you are saying.

Without a doubt it wouldn't be easy, but by no means is it meaningless. I'd like to see what Kerm could do if he made an OS. I bet my pinky toe and my left ear that it'd be epic.

Meh, I seriously don't think calculator OSes are going to be the "new craze" until you implement ALL the math/graphing/financial function, and maintain some sort of compatibility with the old stuff (BASIC compatibility, easy to port ASM programs).

That said, if you continue your project, do NOT expect fame and fortune (if that's what you're looking for). Building an OS is not very easy, and I know that from trying myself. Routines aren't just the thing you need. You must figure out how to allocate the memory for the OS, how to let access in for other programs, and numerous other things that I hate doing. (Believe me, x86 OSes are a pain. I gave up at CLI handling.)

If you are willing to dedicate at least a year on it, then by all means, good luck and bon voyage! Your journey will be tough, but a satisfying one. If not, don't even think about doing anything - you don't have enough time or willpower to attempt it. KnightOS is a wonderful OS that SirCmpwn has been working on, and it has been generating some buzz now, due to it's lovely kernel. His 4-6 months of work has paid off. Note that he has written a kernel - no math, GUI, etc. The rest will take another 6-12 months, in which from his dedication to his project, I'm sure he'll do well. The question is, can YOU dedicate that much?

I have no life and there's nothing on the TI more interesting that writing an OS, I don't see why not. Right now, I only have 2 projects: AsylumOS, and Zelda Afterquest which has nothing to do with the TI and is being hosted on Zelda Universe with about 20 people helping now whereas no one seems to take interest in it here.

That's not a good thing to say about yourself.
Are you in high school? Don't you attend to your studies, like pretty much nearly everyone in this community does?

Nope. I'm 18 and graduated last year. I turn 19 in 3 months, and I can't go to college because:

• A: I don't have the money
  
• B: I didn't get a scholarship
  
• C: I have to stay at home and get a job to help my mom pay the bills since my grandpa died and no one on my side of the family is in his will, (even though we've taken care of him the last 4 years) Without an inheritance, both me and my mom will have to work together to keep the house.

No, that's totally incorrect. It may be easy to send an OS to a calculator, but the vast majority of people have graphing calculators in order to graph and calculate. If your teacher tells the students to do X, Y, and Z on their calculator, and your calculator can't do that stuff, you're not going to learn, and you're going to fall behind. It's strictly limited to people who have spare calculators or people who don't use their calculators for math at all.

Or people who plan to have their OS be able to switch with TIOS based on a flash drive.

I actually think making an OS would be a lot easier if there were a guide to it or something. But then, that takes out all the fun.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that making a third part OS is meaningless (pointless, rather), but I also wouldn't put it at the same level as, say, DCS or Omnicalc. With a third part OS, you're likely going to lose compatibility with decades of software already written for TI-OS; whereas with something like DCS or Omnicalc, you can still do everything you could and more. I say, if you want to make an OS, then make an OS. Personally, I would never make an OS (did that once, and that was enough), and I'll probably never put a third party one on my calc unless there's some really compelling software that I can only run with it (and even then I wouldn't do it to my "main" calc, just one of the few that I have). I think it's accurate to say that most people in the community use their calculators for calculating to some extent, and many for school work, so it's harder to reach as big of an audience with a third party OS than with something like DCS. But, like I said, if you're enjoying making it, then it's not meaningless or pointless.

That summarizes my thoughts exactly very precisely, thanks Merth. Glad we see eye-to-eye.

So how is this project going?

It seems like Anak isn't working on it anymore.

Sadly, he either abandoned it or just left Cemetech and isn't keeping us updated.

In my opinion he probably is going to keep working on it, but the truth is no matter what he does, he will be the only one using it. (more then likely that is)

To restate for the ninth or tenth time what I've expounded elsewhere, I don't think any third-party OS is going to gain any traction. A good set of math tools would be a nice step in the right direction, but that's very unlikely given the resources and experience of the developers making these OSes, and should they succeed, which I would certainly root for, I feel like the vast majority of users would lack one or more of knowledge, inclination, or curiosity to install something other than the official OS. It's hard enough to get people to switch shells from something inferior (but old and established) to something better (but new and different); I can imagine how much harder it would be to try to convince people to change OSes.