CrypticalCode0 wrote:
I use the wiki as reference material, What i feel what is missing is a peek poke listing, and luckly the x86 design has killed the full potential of it.
I know what you mean... but the PC architecture isn't the C64 anymore, where the experienced user would just
know the meaning of 53280 or 49152. You don't "peek & poke", you query the BIOS, peek the EDA, send CPUID requests, poll the PCI bus. Very different ways of getting information,
each of which is described in the appropriate sub-page.
And very little of this has to do with any fixed addresses...
cxzuk wrote:
Id really like to understand the purpose of each article, and for them to flow together nicer.
Agree.
cxzuk wrote:
What is the role of the barebones tutorials.. what lessons are learnt?
It is a minimal "known good" starting point to get you through the bootloader phase into the "Hello World", this-is-a-C-function phase. It's an alternative to the various "write your own bootloader" tutorials out there.
cxzuk wrote:
Is it possible to see any site stats for the wiki as it would be interesting to see where people visit and use the most?
That'd be the [url=http://wiki.osdev.org/Special:Specialpages]Special pages[/quote], linked from the sidebar. There's "Popular pages" among them.
ACcurrent wrote:
Maybe we should just have a page for beginners (not beginners' mistake) but one which introduces them to the x86 architecture very simply.
I am opposed to dumbing down even further. The Wiki should give valuable information to those who are determined to write their own OS, and have the technical competence to do so (which
does include perusing technical documentation). I do
not feel we should cater for people not having the wits about them to write a "calculate prime numbers" type of user-space app, but want to have the bragging rights about their own "OS".
Anyway, there's the
Babystep tutorial, which does a good intro into basic things.