From the 2005 archive:
The "J" Operating System
Target Users:
Hobbiests--You used to buy computers to do programming. They didn't do much else. Windows doesn't even come with a compiler, which is ironic since Bill Gates wrote BASIC. The "J" operating system is primarily intended for programmers. I've attempted to lower the bar, so amateurs can contribute. I hope to recreate the dynamic environment that used to exist when the Commodore 64 was around and everyone was creating odd-ball software.
Researchers--I'm sure many lab researchers still use DOS because they have to interact with hardware, which is difficult with Windows.
Features:
No security! You can access all ports, memory and disk blocks to your hearts content. When you're working with your own computer, security just gets in the way and makes things slow--I hate anti-virus and anti-spyware because they just slow things down. When you know you don't have a risk, have no secrets and do regular back-ups, who needs security?
Uniformity
There is no virtual memory and everyone is on the same address-map. You can easily communicate between tasks, passing addresses. Addresses start at a base of zero and, essentually, segment registers are not used.
There is basically one language to learn called "C+" which is a little more than "C", but less than "C++". You don't need to learn a scripting langauge because everything uses this syntax.
There is an extension of ASCII called "J" rich text which allows colors, links, graphics and various widgets in your documents. This format is used in source code, documents, help, menus, etc.
Support for compressed, encrypted and contiguous files.
FAT32, FAT12 and ISO9660 filesystems.
Blazing-fast compiler which can recompile everything in 5 seconds. It doesn't optimize.
All source code is included and it's still around a Meg.
Hardware:
PS/2 mouse and keyboard
VGA graphics
Some hard drives. Must be on the primary or secondary IDE controller and support LBA28. Drives of 120Gig are the limit.
Some CD-ROM/DVD drives, including burning.
Some floppies. Just 1.44Meg and not all types.
No USB support yet
No network support yet
ASCII printers on the parallel port are supported.