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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Frank-os is working!!!!!
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| gadgetjack Senior Member  Joined: 15/07/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 208 |
Frank-OS-video.zip Frank released a second uf2 file and this one works!!. I have a zipped video of it running on my little monitor on my bench. I was trying to film and type at the same time , apology for the shaky video. Mouse works , our favorite basic works , and a lot of programs and a couple games. I almost gave up on this as I had built that darn thing 3 times!! It runs pretty good. Almost a new windows.... |
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9932 |
Looks quite good!  I sense a cease-and-desist order from Microsoft though, as it "Looks too familiar to Windows 95". Perhaps, perhaps not, but MS sue at the drop of a hat, if they find ANYTHING that just LOOKS like any of their products. At least, they used to. Perhaps that has changed, but I thought that copyright on software was at least 50 years, so it would be the year 2045 before you could legally copy the look and feel of the W95 GUI. Perhaps the laws have changed - I could be totally wrong, but that's what I remember, and I do remember MS going after anyone who even tried to make a Windoze-looking GUI for Linux! Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| JohnS Guru  Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4298 |
Did MS do that? W95 was very like a GUI for UNIX (Motif, I think). Plus prior art was from Xerox PARC. OTOH MS were (are?) a shameless predatory bullying company. John |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8738 |
It would probably be simple enough to make it look like, say, KDE Plasma (which, in turn, can look like almost anything!). Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| grumpyoldgeek Regular Member  Joined: 30/07/2018 Location: United StatesPosts: 44 |
Reminds me of a story back in olden times... It had come to Microsoft's attention that IBM might be infringing on two of Microsoft's patents. Microsoft called a meeting with the IBM lawyers and slid the two patents across the table to them. The IBM lawyers reached under the table, lifted up a banker's box of patents and slid them across the table to the Microsoft attorneys. |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8738 |
I doubt if MS could (or would bother to) do much about it now. It would hardly be worth waking one of their lawyers up for. There has been no code copied, there has been no port to this CPU of anything MS, the desktop "emulation" is now almost ubiquitous in every OS on every platform. MS's only contribution to the Lisa's OS was overlapping "windows" and X has been doing that for decades - even that is now being replaced by Wayland. On top of all that, how is it likely to affect sales of the Windows desktop? The court would like to know. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| Amnesie Guru Joined: 30/06/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 747 |
Hi, this looks interesting! What can be done with MMBASIC in Frank OS? Du you need PSRAM? Greetings Daniel |
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| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3732 |
Per perplexity: PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on FOTS |
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| bfwolf Senior Member Joined: 03/01/2025 Location: GermanyPosts: 213 |
Securing full design protection would likely be quite difficult.  Apple (or Xerox/Palo Alto Labs?) held a patent on overlapping windows back then, which led to the limitations in DRI's GEM, for example, on the Atari ST (and later under DOS). But even the Amiga seemed to be able to circumvent this.  One day, patents do (thankfully) expire!  However, Apple also held a "patent" on the appearance of the trash can icon on the desktop, which forced AmigaOS, OS/2, and Windows to design it differently.  |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4298 |
From their site: PSRAM (optional, up to 16 MB) Used for ELF application memory. Accessed via QSPI on CS1, auto-detected at boot. If not present, the allocator returns NULL and apps fall back to internal SRAM. But I expect you do need it to run (the stripped-down as yet (*)) MMBasic. (*) well, it was when I looked, and no wonder John |
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| gadgetjack Senior Member Joined: 15/07/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 208 |
It's not all good news yet. Our favorite basic is so stripped down it barely runs. I can't get it to load and run ANY basic program. The other stuff seems ok ,random lock ups now and then. It is getting better but not there yet. Kind of behaves like the REAL windows 95...... |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9932 |
Re: all the copyright/MS legal talk - Goody. I was kinda hoping that would pretty much be the case now. But I DO remember a time(going back 20 years or so), when MS were quite litigious in that department. I guess that has indeed tapered off now(with respect to W95-type GUI clones etc), which is no bad thing. Edited 2026-04-08 09:12 by Grogster Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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