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Instructional / training recommendations for ...?

G'Morning ...

I have several projects I'm interested working on, and am interested in setting up several "stripped-down" systems designed specifically for the "purpose of the day". I'm also thinking of just creating several dedicated hard drives for my laptop that will be used the same way.

I'm interested in anything some Pros can suggest for learning this :

1) Creating and desining a TinyXP or TinyVista config from a full CD.

2) Configging (and providing files for) a completely remote setup from a server, and multiple boot from server configs. I'd like to make each login remote with different user IDs *before* it loads the core instead of after starting Windows XP Pro. A DOS-based login that decides the TinyXP (or TinyVista) remote version to load.

3) Kiosk mode. Any and everything I can be taught about it, including touch-screens and I/O methods as far on-screen keyboards, speech recognition, plug-in devices, etc..

4) Full and complete from scratch re-designing older PDAs to fit my own personal software and OS requirements. I want to completely rebuild something like a Palm Treo, or other lightweight but capable WinCE-type device into a full TinyXP / TinyVista system, and add one of the newest USB flashdrives of around 32+Gigs, or even run an optional-by-login OS function(s) from the flashdrive itself.

Thanks in Advance ...

Update:

Added bit of background, I'm in my late 30s and have been working, playing, fooling with systems since the early 80's. I have extensive bgrounds in DOS through Windows as end-user/hobbyist.

2 Answers

Relevance
  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Take a 4 year degree course in Computer Science, specializing in operating systems. That's barely enough for you to begin learning what you'll need to learn in order to do what you want.

    You can't create a "tinyXP" from an XP CD, you have to write it from scratch (since the source code isn't available). Your best bet is to use Linux, since source code *is* available. Of course, Linux isn't Windows, so it won't run Windows programs (unless you run Wine, but that's defeating the goal of a tiny operating system).

    As far as login before choice of system to boot, you'll have to boot a small OS of some kind to do that. DOS source isn't available, but enough of CP/M is (if you can still find someone who knows where his copies are - I may be able to find some on CP/M or TRS-DOS disks) that you could port it to i86.

    You're talking about a few man-years of design and development effort at least - this isn't a trivial project.

    Source(s): I've written a few operating systems over the years.
  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    Ed Byrne is very good

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