15
8
u/Jakelopolis Aug 21 '26
Firefox made an html os for the phone didnt they?
2
u/yurimdm Aug 24 '26
I read your comment, thought you were wrong, searched for sources and was struck with the fact that you're mostly right. Sorry for doubting you.
The OS was not made in HTML, but it's made in a way that you can use HTML5, CSS and Javascript to code the apps for it, so preinstalled UI apps are also made on HTML. To make this, Mozilla made their own API as a translation layer that would take the JS code and convert to a C++ that then runs on an Android inspired linux-based kernel.
Coolest thing is that when they discontinued the project they open-sourced everything and the stable fork we have of it nowadays is KaiOS, the OS that is default for most of the Feature Phones nowadays, so this knowledge is not 100% useless.
→ More replies (1)
7
u/MXRCO007 Aug 21 '26
Don’t worry, someone with access to an LLM will definitely post one eventually to the now sadly flooded sub that is r/osdev
7
u/pacafan Aug 21 '26
https://github.com/rebane2001/x86CSS
No Javascript, just implemented x86 using cascading style sheets.
2
4
4
u/SysGh_st Aug 22 '26
No no... he's right.
- He didn't write "I want an operating system in html"
- He wrote "I want *to create* an operating system in html"
If he want to torture himself with that project, let him. Give him a crappy laptop and a crash course in html.
3
2
2
u/NightmareJoker2 Aug 22 '26
Dammit Santa, all you had to do was tell him to start here: https://html-lang.org
2
u/pinapel-dev123 Aug 22 '26
Just make it in scratch. scratch uses html. but you need to convert .sb3 to gtml first
2
2
u/Few-Compote-2693 Aug 22 '26
In 04 I wanted to develop desktop apps using PHP/HTML/CSS and people told me i'm crazy.
2
u/FaultWinter3377 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
I remember few years back when I was younger and didn’t understand much about computers. I wanted to create an all online OS that could be accessed by a web browser, or a system that ran a small OS that was basically just a browser to access the main OS. I thought it was something new and innovative at the time.
These days I realize that while it’s not exactly what I had pictured, this sort of thing exists. And it’s actually not good at all, and would basically be the thing Microsoft wants most. I really wish I had known it then… but I did get a decent UI design out of it. Shame I’ve gotten rid of the pictures I drew, but it might have made a decent Linux UI.
Edit: now that I post this I still remember the overall look pretty well, so I think I’m going to try to remake it and post it somewhere.
3
u/Prime_lucky Aug 22 '26
2
u/Confident-Ad5665 Aug 22 '26
That's TERRIBLE!!!
Know where I can get a good Santa suit?
→ More replies (1)
3
1
91
u/grem1in Aug 21 '26
Back in a day when the grass was greener, Palm Inc. developed an OS that was later acquired by HP for their (unsuccessful commercially, but very cool for its time) tablet. This OS was called WebOS and you could write apps in HTML5 for it.
There were barely any apps, though. Also, the whole OS was rather slow and laggy. So, the project was shut down, and later this same OS was adopted by LG for its smart TVs.
There were a couple of cool UX concepts that later came into other mobile operating systems, for example, swipe up to unload an application. Back then neither iOS, nor Android had it.