Pure JavaScript Unix-Like Web Based OS 313
slummy writes " JS/UIX 'is an UNIX-like OS for standard web-browsers, written entirely in JavaScript (no plug-ins used). It comprises a virtual machine, shell, virtual file-system, process-management, and brings its own terminal with screen- and keyboard-mapping.' If only you didn't need an OS to run the web browser on."
So its true! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So its true! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So its true! (Score:2)
Next up (Score:5, Funny)
From TFA:
"The only application for now is a simple implementation of vi"
How long before emacs is ported?
Re:Next up (Score:2)
--:-- *scratch* (Lisp Interaction)--L5--All--
Loading vmunix.el... Done.
It is rather impressive to have an OS in a web browser though.. even if it's not exactly that useful.
Re:Next up (Score:2)
Re:Next up (Score:2)
Re:Next up (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Next up (Score:2)
Re:Next up (Score:2)
How long before this is ported to emacs?
boot sd(0,a)vmunix.el (Score:2)
Uses? (Score:5, Insightful)
Related to this (but much cooler), there used to be a site at WebOS.com where the site lauched a full-screen browser window and allowed you to interact with an entirely HTML desktop. Even the applications were downloaded on the fly, and the files were saved on the server.
Re:Uses? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uses? (Score:5, Funny)
No networking (Score:2)
I happened to be reading the JS/UIX page right as the slashdotting came in. I want a JavaScript viewer for my termrec tool [angband.pl]. My version is in very early stages [angband.pl], but at least it's in color
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
well, that deopends how it works. the site is under some load at the moment so I can't read it. is the OS running locally in your web browser? or are you getting a shell to a web-based OS on the web-server?
if the latter then it could be very useful, esp if they can port ssh across. then users inside a corporate firewall can use it to get a shell outside the company that they can ssh from, when they may not have ssh access fgrom inside. and as it
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
Uses -- about as useful as Cygwin or Unix Svcs (Score:2)
I tried this out on mirrordot and was impressed (even if it is still in proof-of-concept stage). It would be neat to have a unix environment anywhere you have an internet connection. I could also see it being used as a extremely portable virtual machine for simple applications.
Doesn't have to be in a web browser (Score:2)
I've not yet looked at the code to find out if it's written cleanly enough for this, but theoretically someone could use an out-of-browser JavaScript interpreter and a replacement terminal part to make it talk over a socket, telnet-style. Then you could run it as a daemon and forget it's written in JavaScript...
If you were really crazy, you could even figure out how to make it support multiple concurrent terminals, run it as init (with an appropriate wrapper+js-interpreter written in C) on a system with th
Re:Uses? (Score:3, Funny)
Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uses? (Score:3, Interesting)
Shameless plug: I've made something similar here: http://wakaba.c3.cx/desktop-test/desktop.pl [c3.cx]
Log in as test:test. It's fairly useful for doing management of a web server. Try not to Slashdot it too badly, OK?
Mor information here: http [c3.cx]
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
I've truly stopped looking for the 'why' and just accepting it was because someone thought it would be shiney and cool to do.
Increasingly, it's quite obvious some of this is just simply because it can be done.
Re:Uses? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Uses? (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, you are speaking about those employers who lock their employees in a building 24/7 and never let them go home to study or do other things on their own, right?
Re:Uses? (Score:4, Informative)
those crazy firewall admins and their rules !
Re:Uses? (Score:5, Informative)
The MirrorDot mirror is here [mirrordot.org] so that you can try for yourself.
Especially... (Score:4, Informative)
(apologies to slashdot member CTho9305)
Compiler (Score:3, Funny)
I wanna run doom on it!
Re:Compiler (Score:2)
Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
PS You do know that in Soviet Russia, your browser runs your OS, right?
Re:Obligatory (Score:2)
Screenshot (Score:5, Funny)
:-)
Re:Screenshot (Score:2)
fake DOS... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:fake DOS... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:fake DOS... (Score:2)
Re:fake DOS... (Score:2)
c:\> prompt "enter password:"
so then, instead of the friendly c:> prompt, this was what everyone saw:
enter password:
I still don't think they'd figure that out if presented with that prompt today.
Re:fake DOS... (Score:2)
Mine said things like "I can't find that for you. Can't you see that I'm busy?" and stuff like that.
I think I called it "sleepy" or "grumpy" or something. I tossed it into the autoexec.bat, and annoyed family and friends for ages
-WS
Re:fake DOS... (Score:2)
There was this one where you drive an old race car across the US in some kind of race (alaska to florida or some such). It had a bug I never did find
Can you imagine publishing Doom/Quake that way? The poor kids would be typing for months
-WS
Re:fake DOS... (Score:2)
in Hungary there was a TV program for teaching BASIC
the geekiest thing was, that after the show ended, they would TRASMIT a ZX Spectrum program thru the TV
so i was sitting in front of the TV with a tape recorder waiting for the BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP--kkrrrsshhrhhhssssssskrrshsh
the typing: i spent a summer holiday job at my dad's workplace once
Re:fake DOS... (Score:2)
Re:fake DOS... (Score:5, Funny)
You wanna hear a really fucked up story?
Okay. It's 1993. I think. I was somewhere between 8 and 10, so maybe it was '94. Anyway, it's not important.
I was learning to program at the time, and my uncle who is four years older than me decided that since I was a rather dull child, with wit as sharp as a rubber ball, I should start with QBASIC.
So I created a grand program: A DOS Shell. It would let you look around, cd, all that fancy stuff. I added colours.
It was all good.
So, anyway, I didn't really have a good concept of exactly what an OS was, and I decided I'd written one, so, (this was back in the day you understand, and my parents really weren't too computer savvy) I got on their AOL account and uploaded it to AOL's file center, billing it as a revolutionary new operation system called DHDMP. I think. That or DHCMP. I forget.
The instructions went something along the lines of, STEP 1: Uninstall DOS.
You get the picture.
Well, after around 9 thousand downloads, my parent's AOL account was canceled.
I'd like to think I did a great deal of good via those 9 thousand downloads.
Re:fake DOS... (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe that's hex. I'm 1A years old.
Re:fake DOS... (Score:4, Funny)
It still works on my XP machine!
I was even worried for an instant when it was supposedly formatting my hard d^i^c^kz^z^z^^z^z^f^^ s^d^f^zêf^zê^f^sd^f s^df ^sd^f ^sd^f^s^df^s s^df ^sd^f^s^df^s^df^^s^sd^f^sd^f^^sd^f ^^sdf^^sd^f
Re:fake DOS... (Score:4, Funny)
Wow. (Score:2)
Re:fake DOS... (Score:2)
Tell me about it. I have a truly embarrassingly bad Tripod webpage I created in about 1996 that still shows up as one of the first three hits when you Google my name... And since I can't remember my old password and must have given them a fake address, they won't let me delete it. *sigh*
Re:fake DOS... (Score:2)
It worked exactly as you would expect except for the fact that the 'm' and 'n' keys were reversed. To make things even more confusing, I prised the 'm' and 'n' key caps off the keyboard, and replaced them in the wrong positions, so that the keys would appear to generate the correct character.
The poor guy could never figure out why he kept typing 'wim' to start windows.
crap .. (Score:3, Funny)
If this becomes too successful... (Score:3, Funny)
Site slashdotted (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but . . . (Score:5, Funny)
If you cant reach because of the /.... (Score:5, Informative)
For an overview of implemented commands have a look at the complete > JS/UIX-Manual-Pages; see also the > Version-History.
The keyboard accepts the US-ASCII character set. As key-mapping depends from your browser, you may have to use the cursor and backspace buttons at the lower right of the terminal. A complete keyboard can be accessed at the lower left.
Compatibility: Netscape 4+, MS IE 4+ and DOM-aware browsers.
Mirrordot link:
http://mirrordot.org/stories/1c1bf041ca7144dbe4b3
unnecessary... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:unnecessary... (Score:2)
Immortal...? or just UNDEAD!
Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:5, Informative)
It might as well go in the Hardware topic too, while you're at it - after all, it must be running on some kind of hardware.
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:5, Funny)
You might as well call yourself Tim x86 Assembly - after all, there's some underlying atomic arrangement to your cell structure.
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:2, Informative)
Nice try though
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:5, Funny)
--AC
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:2)
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:3, Funny)
perl? (Score:2)
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:3)
Likewise, I think that Intel should have done better to name their new card format other than PCIe because PCI-X was available for a few years already. At least PCI-X is electrically, physically and software compatible with the PCI standards, PCIe isn't on any of these accounts.
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:3, Informative)
That would be Netscape. The actual standard is called ECMAScript, but the JavaScript name has stuck.
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:2)
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:2)
Javascript was initially called LiveScript. When LiveConnect came around and let people script java applets and instantiate arbitrary java objects, they changed the name to JavaScript. I think it's still officially spelled with StudlyCaps.
For being unrelated, there's actually some pretty tight integration. Mind you, LiveConnect was (and perhaps is no
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:3, Informative)
The change of name from LiveScript to JavaScript happened at roughly the time that Netscape was including support for Java technology in its Netscape Navigator web browser. The choice of name proved to be a source of much confusion. There is no real relation between Java and JavaScript; their similarities are mostly in syntax (that is, both derived from C); their semantics are quite different, notably their object models are unrelated and largely incompatible.
Source [wikipedia.org]. You have any links on the contr
Re:Why is this in the Java topic? (Score:2)
I dunno, mods these days, no sense of humour...
Mirror (Score:3, Informative)
The terminal works, just without pictures for the buttons.
Webserver? (Score:2, Funny)
I am tempted to check it out.
Re:Webserver? (Score:2)
Finally we can put together... (Score:5, Funny)
I tried it, very impressive - if reallly in JS (Score:2)
"OS" is probably a misnomer, it would be probably better to call it a Write-Once/Run Anywhere Virtual Machine. A JS-based virtual machine might be kinda neat. It would probably never be as robust and general-purpose as JAVA, but could be useful for simple applications.
SSH client? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SSH client? (Score:2)
Take in input, relay via AJAX, get response, display, repeat.
Although might not be 100% secure though.
- shazow
Re:SSH client? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course you can build an SSH-like thing that has a server component, but that's been possible for a while. (It's not easy emulating a term, and it'd be latent as all hell, but that's what you get.)
You can hack and hack and hack, but without server support you just can't get past the fact you don't have a real socket connection in Javascript.
I added all those adjectives at the beginning because if you're willing to write and install a Mozilla XPCOM control or ActiveX or something that exposes a socket you can do it. But that is, presumably, not what you meant since you mentioned not needing to install components.
Re:SSH client? (Score:3, Informative)
Learn what sockets are. Learn (It extends past a single slashdot message.) Learn SSH uses them [snailbook.com].
Then compare with the https protocol.
Doesn't matter how clever you get; an https connection isn't an ssh connection; you've already lost before any of your JS program's input has made it onto the wire (encrypted or otherwise).
Re:SSH client? (Score:3, Interesting)
As you said, latency will be hell (e.g. 2 sec), but the UNIX CLI deals surprisingly well with high latency links.
Back in the day it was quite common to do stuff over 300bps links with high latency (probably rarely up to 2s but in the ballpark).
So, first of all you'll decouple Input and Output.
Instead of sending a char, waiting until the server echos it and printing it you will print the typed chars immediately and probably send the whole line on each poll
Uh oh... (Score:2, Funny)
I Know!!! (Score:4, Funny)
1. No more monolithic Linux kernel or proprietary Windows kernel!
2. No more mach kernel because they're slow dontchaknow
3. We get rid of X Windows and replace it with Gecko, Javascript, CSS and Mozilla chromes
4. No more clunky X Windows network transparency because nobody uses it anyways. Now all graphic connections will happen in memory instead of going out over the network to the router and back in to the machine they went out of!
5. No more ability to run servers (because only crackers and pirates do that)
6. Google searches become embedded in teh OS like Microsoft plans to do in Pot Noodle Hornlong!
7. A driving instructor somewhere in Johanessberg gets his job back mate!
Man am I thirsty!
Countdown (Score:2, Funny)
Right? (Score:2, Funny)
to run aan browser
to run javascript
to run this new operating system?
This must be useful!
embed browser in firmware (Score:2)
If this caught on, they'd probably come up with a sytem that has an embedded browser built into CMOS.
As is is, however, I think that this has to run extremely slow due to the number of layers of abstraction and emulation involved.
nitpick (Score:2)
Technically, you don't.
From the about page: (Score:2)
Better than localhost! (Score:2, Funny)
Infinite loop . . (Score:2)
Lemmings! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not an OS (Score:2)
oh dear god... (Score:2, Funny)
Too bad it needs an OS to serve it up.. (Score:2)
More wasted effort (Score:2)
Why not spend your time doing something that's actually useful, such as, say, making Linux easier to use?
Re:No comments and site dead. (Score:2)
mirror.dot [mirrordot.org]
google cache [64.233.161.104]
Re:No comments and site dead. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:They stole MY idea !!! (Score:2)
I'm sure they weren't the first, nor were you.
I had an idea like that a while ago, too.
I wouldn't mind contributing if you get a team going. Doubt I could get into it full-time, but I could write an app or two.
What I was thinking is having a web-based office suite. Have an option to upload a file (eg. word, or open office format), it'll parse it, format it, and load it off the server, displaying it with a nice GUI. It'll let you edit it, save it back to the server,
Re:They stole MY idea !!! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)