Formerly known as “laststep”. It is code-named “Neptune” and represents Marcus’ current flag ship software project. In past years he has experimented with object-oriented languages and its software.
As it currently stands, MarcOS seeks to provide a hybrid-like operating system platform, which only has its foundation running on a computer. Applications up to a certain magnitude can be streamed down directly to the machine. While such an approach could potentially keep all settings and data in sync, he believes that such an OS approach might be worth to investigate. The UI, called Illuminous, seeks to provide a solid replacement to the now aging point-and-click windowing environment, currently in use in all operating systems on the market.
In current development, the OS platform uses a modified Arch Linux as its base. The folder structure is heavily modified and is reminiscent of the structure currently found on Macintosh computers. Marcus believes that implementing such a structure makes it easier to build and maintain the platform.
It all started off with Squeak, the Smalltalk VM. In that VM he has been developing a new generation UI – but this has come to a halt after recognizing that it was impractical to have multitasking for software in a virtual machine. However this got him going on the basics of object-oriented design and has since moved on to a more solid implementation of such software: GNUstep. It is the non-Macintosh version of Apple-like implementation of object-oriented frameworks.
Having experimented around with that for about a year, and having understood the deeper matter of object-oriented design, he set out to create his own object-oriented programming language which ultimately is designed to be the center piece of his own operating system – named MarcOS. He has been dreaming of writing his own OS for many years, but now feels that he has acquired the skills to create it.
It is intended to retail software at an as of yet undetermined price – however it will be far below the EUR 100 mark. However, there is no fixed release date available as of the moment. A private Beta testing pool however is considered, to perform large-scale testing of the environment and the platform.
MarcOS and its logo are (c) Marcus McKay.
