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jsmp

@jsmp.bsky.social

A secret C practitioner, FreeBSD aficionado, cloud admirer (the real ones), and artist wannabe.

jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A major milestone this last weekend for my hobby os 😁. aster can now compile and run a C programs entirely on-system (using a port of llvm/clang), and take it a step further by building a C++ UI application using Petal, Aster’s native UI toolkit.

Aster OS running in QEMU, showing its desktop with Text Edit and Terminal windows. Text Edit contains a small C “Hello from C on Aster” program, while the Terminal shows Aster’s Clang 22.1.8 compiler targeting x86_64-unknown-aster, followed by the program being compiled and successfully executed. A dock at the bottom provides shortcuts to Apps, Files, Terminal, and Text Edit.

Aster OS running in QEMU, demonstrating a C++ Petal application. Text Edit shows the CounterView source code using reactive state and a declarative VStack, while the running “Petal Counter Demo” displays the current count and an Increment button. A terminal below shows the application being built and installed into /apps/counter-demo.app, with the running app also visible in the desktop dock.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“Can we get a vector editor?” “We have one at home.” The vector editor at home: editing its own icons. Glass Edit is built with Aster’s UI toolkit and also runs on macOS. Here it’s editing Aster’s vector icons and cursors.

Glass Edit editing its own icon set, showing the align-top icon open on the canvas. The interface includes a layer hierarchy on the left, vector editing canvas in the center, and shape, fill, stroke, and alignment controls in the inspector on the right.

Glass Edit editing Aster’s cursor.glass file. The arrow cursor is selected on the vector canvas, with other system cursors listed on the left and the cursor’s path points and geometry shown in the Path inspector on the right.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Petal, Aster’s new C++ widget library and application framework. The demo app showcases some of its basic widgets and features (which also means Aster now supports C++ 😅)

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Added a few minor improvements to the UI widgets, as well as to the workspace itself, including multi-user session management with login, logout, and shutdown. A sessiond process owns and manages each session and its associated resources. There was also some work on SMP support along the way.

A retro-style Aster OS login window running in QEMU. The centered dialog has a blue title bar labeled “Log In,” a watercolor floral banner, and a torn-paper edge above the login form. Below it are “Welcome back,” username and password fields, a “Shut Down…” button, and a disabled “Log In” button. The desktop background is light blue, with styling reminiscent of classic late-1990s/early-2000s operating systems

Aster OS desktop running in QEMU with a retro-style interface. A terminal window displays process information from the ps command, with a text editor open behind it. Centered over the terminal is a “Confirm Session Action” dialog asking, “Are you sure you want to log out now?” with Cancel and Log Out buttons. A small dock at the bottom provides shortcuts for Apps, Files, Terminal, and Text Edit.

Aster OS shutting down inside QEMU. Against a black background, a centered retro-style dialog says the system is shutting down and asks the user to wait while applications are terminated. The status reads “Closing applications…” above a turquoise animated progress bar.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

For me, the menu bar as a UX is incredible for discovering what an app can do. That's why DOS Edit was so approachable. For Aster Terminal Editor, ESC toggles a similar menu bar, with mouse support (works on macOS too).

Screenshot of the Aster operating system running in QEMU. A terminal editor window is open, displaying a psh script with syntax highlighting, including comments, variables, strings, functions, and structured values. A classic menu bar is visible at the top of the desktop, while a small dock with Files and Terminal icons sits in the bottom-left corner. The editor shows line numbers, a status bar, and a scrollbar, giving the interface a retro workstation feel.

Screenshot of a terminal-based code editor running in a macOS window, editing the threes.psh sample script. The editor displays syntax-highlighted psh code with line numbers, a status bar showing the file path and encoding, and a help bar listing keyboard shortcuts such as save, quit, menu, and pipe. The dark theme and minimal interface focus attention on the code while providing a classic terminal editing experience.

Screenshot of a terminal-based code editor running in a macOS window with a classic menu bar visible. The View menu is open, showing options for line numbers, word wrap, and syntax highlighting, with a submenu listing formats such as Auto, PSH, PSL, RC, Key = Value, and ASCII Plist. Behind the menus, a syntax-highlighted psh script is visible, while the status bar and help bar remain displayed at the bottom of the editor.

Screenshot of a terminal-based code editor running in a macOS window with the Format menu open. A Transform submenu is expanded, offering text transformations such as uppercase, lowercase, snake_case, camelCase, and Pipe…, which sends the current selection to a shell command. Behind the menus, a block of psh code is selected, demonstrating the editor's ability to process selected text through external commands.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Went to draft an article using raise (a SSG written in C), and had forgotten it can display a QR code for opening the served pages on my iPhone. It brought back the struggle of getting the QR code rendering right, which I'd completely forgotten. Unfortunately, also how ugly that particular code is.

Terminal window showing the raise serve --bind-all --qr command serving a static website from a local _build directory. The output warns that --bind-all exposes the server on all network interfaces, then lists the local URL (http://localhost:9090), the LAN URL (http://192.168.1.204:9090), and displays a large QR code that encodes the network address for quick access from another device.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

another one would be `import this`

Screenshot of the Python interactive interpreter showing the command import this, which prints The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters. The terminal displays the full collection of Python design principles, beginning with “Beautiful is better than ugly” and ending with “Namespaces are one honking great idea — let's do more of those!”, followed by the Python prompt awaiting the next command.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Most of my C development still happens in Xcode (thanks to cmake -G Xcode). As a result, many of Aster's GUI applications also run on the macOS host through a thin SDL2 backend while continuing to use Aster's graphics and UI libraries.

Screenshot of the Aster desktop showing two native applications running. In the foreground, the Files application displays the root directory with folders such as apps, bin, boot, dev, etc, system, users, and var, alongside about.txt and guide.txt. Behind it, the TextEdit application is open with about.txt, describing Aster as an experimental 64-bit x86 operating system inspired by the simplicity of OpenBSD and the graphical approach of NeXTSTEP. Both applications use Aster's blue-and-gray desktop theme with classic window decorations.

Screenshot of the Files application running on macOS, displaying the Aster source tree. The window shows project folders including apps, include, libacpi, libcore, libdebug, libelf, libfs, libglass, libgvfc, libimg, liblens, libpci, libtext, libui, sys, tools, user, and usr, along with a CMakeLists.txt file. The tools folder is selected, illustrating that Aster's source code can be browsed and developed directly on macOS.

Screenshot of Aster's TextEdit application running on macOS. The window displays about.txt, describing Aster as an experimental 64-bit x86 operating system inspired by the simplicity of OpenBSD and NeXTSTEP's approach to graphical user interfaces. The first paragraph is highlighted, demonstrating text selection within the native editor.

Screenshot of Aster's Files application running on macOS in list view, browsing the libui/controls directory of the Aster source tree. The table lists C source files implementing UI controls, including buttons, labels, menus, sliders, text views, table views, and scrollbars, with ui_scrollbar.c selected. The view demonstrates Aster's table-based file browser running on the macOS host while using Aster's own UI libraries.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

One nice aspect of building a POSIX-oriented operating system is that many of its components can stand on their own. psh, Aster's shell, builds and runs on macOS, making it easy to iterate on new features and continuously refine the user experience.

Screenshot of the psh terminal running on macOS. The terminal demonstrates array support by creating an array [1, 2, 3, 4], formatting it with fmt, and iterating over its elements with a for loop to print each value. The shell features syntax highlighting with a dark theme and displays the aster % prompt.

Screenshot of three.psh, a sample game written in psh, running in the psh terminal on macOS. The game displays a 4×4 grid with numbered tiles (2, 4, 8, and a highlighted 16), along with the player's score, move count, and name. Instructions at the bottom explain how to move using the arrow keys or WASD and press q to save and quit, demonstrating that psh can be used to build interactive terminal applications.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

fmt is becoming one of my favorite features in psh. psh, Aster’s default shell, treats command output as data. With fmt, tools can expose structured output that scripts can safely consume as maps and lists, without fragile text parsing.

Screenshot of Aster OS running the psh shell. The terminal demonstrates structured command output using the fmt builtin, converting vmstat memory statistics into shell-accessible fields and displaying them with formatted text and a progress meter.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Another addition is a shared --fmt= output layer through a new libfmt, enabling CLI tools to expose structured output modes such as JSON. The library focuses on human-readable terminal output first, while also making data easy to export and consume. #aster #osdev

Screenshot of Aster OS running in QEMU with two retro-style terminal windows showing colored JSON output from system tools like ps, mount, and elfdump. The desktop uses a minimalist blue workspace with an early UNIX workstation feel.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Aster’s terminal app (term) now has much better xterm compatibility and proper PTY handling across the system (gettty, PTYs, and major libc support). Also landed an early workspace/window compositor layer. #osdev #toyOS

Screenshot of the operating system running inside QEMU. The desktop has a light blue background with two overlapping terminal windows using a classic dark theme and silver-blue title bars. The terminals display xterm compatibility tests, process listings, and PTY device information. A small terminal launcher icon appears in the bottom-left corner. The UI is minimalist and retro-inspired.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

elfdump on Aster showing symbols from libc and libcore. Inspired by BeOS: threads as the execution unit, “teams” as process containers, libc exposing a POSIX-like interface. The terminal is a graphical app (bitmap font: spleen, mouse + scrollbar) rendering a full-screen TTY.

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Back to Aster (my toy OS), a raw binary bootloader with minimal FAT support now loads an ELF64 kernel (no GRUB). The kernel executes ELF64 binaries and includes an early shared library loader (for libc and libcore).

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jsmp @jsmp.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

You know, you must take things serious when Elfs start to carry a Sword, Xword and even Sxword.

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