What's an OS?...

[darklife]

;D Okay, I know that's not a question for here but it's more complex than seems.. I plan to make a kernal that boots from xx-DOS and once in PMode takes over (of cource). Some of the calls to the kernal will revert to DOS (real address mode) for work but most jobs will be handled by my kernal. In reality there would be two kernals at work here but would it still be a good idea to call my kernal with its utilities an "OS"? Or would it be a "shell"?

[Pype.Clicker]

it depends on how tigh you depend on xx-DOS. This approach has been followed by the infamous Windows 3.x and Windows 9x and failed to provide either good performance or stability. If i were you, i would reconsider things and ask myself why i wish to rely on some ancient software (i.e. what do DOS offer that you don't want to reimplement) and the cost of importing that feature from some open-source OS rather than delegating it to DOS ...

[Ozguxxx]

Kernal? =Kernel. Hi, I think thats not a good idea firstly because you will always have a pressure to get things right with dos (in the sense of memory management, in particular you will have to master internals of dos so that you will know how to cope with your approach, which is I think completely opposite to spirit of os development.) Also dos is a real mode set of functionalities, right? Wont it be some kinda slow to make dos handle some functions? I hope I did not misunderstand you, good luck.

[darklife]

Apple and CBM used to call it a "kernal", so for fun I call it that to. This is less of an OS project than any here. This project is a "get it up and running" more than it is a "make it better than.." project.
Thanks for opinions though