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Is it possible to create programmes to run on coumputers thad do not have any operating systems? :evil: :cheesy: :sad:

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by aer9998
aer9998 commented: i wanna know too, very interesting +0

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Short answer: yes — you can run software on a machine that has no general-purpose operating system. What people usually call "no OS" is either firmware/bare‑metal code on microcontrollers or a single program that the firmware/bootloader hands control to on a PC. Both are common in embedded and systems work.

Practical distinction: on microcontrollers your program is the firmware and talks directly to hardware; on x86 PCs you often get help from BIOS or UEFI (or a bootloader like GRUB) to load your binary. If you implement things like scheduling, filesystems, device abstraction or driver stacks, you’re effectively building parts of an OS — so and are right that the line blurs. and point toward the embedded case; ’s experience is the usual real‑world approach: small, focused code that does one job and nothing else.

A very short workflow to get started:

  • pick the target (MCU, x86 BIOS, or UEFI).
  • use an emulator (QEMU for x86, a simulator for MCUs) to iterate safely.
  • use a freestanding toolchain (GCC/clang with -ffreestanding/-nostdlib) and a simple linker script.
  • choose a boot method: 512‑byte boot sector, GRUB multiboot, or UEFI app.
  • use firmware services (BIOS INT 10h or UEFI console) for quick I/O while prototyping; replace with drivers later.
  • debug with serial output, GDB, or JTAG/OpenOCD rather than printf.

Troubleshooting/cautions: test in an emulator before touching real hardware, keep the first builds tiny (set up stack, clear BSS, blink an LED or send one serial byte), and read the CPU/board datasheets for initialization sequences. If you want multitasking or richer services later, consider embedding a tiny RTOS instead of writing everything from scratch.

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Member Avatar for chound

Plz increase my reputation

commented: don't beg +0
commented: dont go asking for Rep, thats rude. +0
commented: wat ever i need to spread rep it isnt going to do much for you +1
Member Avatar for freesoft_2000

Hi everyone,
yes, but you have to create everything even api's that display the text on the screen. You can also do it for gui's but you have to create your own look and feel and gui packages

Yours Sincerely

Richard West

Member Avatar for Narue

>Is it possible to create programmes to run on coumputers thad do not have any operating systems?
No, since to do so would require you to write an operating system to some extent.

Member Avatar for Dave Sinkula

Is it possible to create programmes to run on coumputers thad do not have any operating systems? :evil: :cheesy: :sad:

That's generally what I do, so yes.

Member Avatar for omol

cmos chips for things like vending machines and such like use little programs on chips with no os. Close as you can get i spose to having no os. But it is still running operations so it's an os. Sort of like how long is a bit of string.

Member Avatar for felgall

Programs that run on computers without needing an operating system are called "operating systems".

Member Avatar for aer9998

Well operating systems havent always been around, so I guess the question is can you create programs that for example only access maybe the keyboard and screen on an x86 processor without creating timesharing, drivers for other hardware etc. I understand that such programs would be tedious, but im sure theyre possible to write. you would probably have to learn every aspect of the processor architecture, the graphics card, how to load from a floppy disk (or cd?) etc.

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