J
Julio Merino
blogsystem5.substack.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2023
Julio Merino writes about operating system internals, DOS memory models, build systems, and comparisons between Windows NT and Unix.
What HN saysHN links it for his NT versus Unix design comparison, where a commenter says he found NT well made, and for his DOS and Bazel posts.
39HN people shared it
5linked it in comments
83stories submitted
3.8Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2023people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Revisiting the DOS Memory Models5 people · 201 points · first shared 2024 · 101 comments on HN
- 2Hard disk LEDs and noisy machines4 people · 215 points · first shared 2023 · 128 comments on HN
- 3Hardware Discovery: ACPI and Device Tree4 people · 13 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 4Windows NT vs. Unix: A design comparison3 people · 648 points · first shared 2024 · 609 comments on HN
- 5The costs of the i386 to x86-64 upgrade3 people · 167 points · first shared 2024 · 70 comments on HN
- 6Revisiting the NetBSD Build System3 people · 148 points · first shared 2024 · 16 comments on HN
- 7How DOS was able to use most of the 1 MB address space of the 80863 people · 145 points · first shared 2024 · 71 comments on HN
- 8Picking Glibc Versions at Runtime3 people · 123 points · first shared 2024 · 70 comments on HN
- 9The next generation of Bazel builds3 people · 99 points · first shared 2025 · 88 comments on HN
- 10Beyond the 1 MB barrier in DOS3 people · 95 points · first shared 2024 · 3 comments on HN
- 11BazelCon 2024 Recap3 people · 55 points · first shared 2024 · 39 comments on HN
- 12Demystifying Secure NFS3 people · 11 points · first shared 2024 · 4 comments on HN
- 13Running GNU on DOS with Djgpp3 people · 9 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 14Porting the EndBASIC Console to an LCD3 people · 9 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 15To C or Not to C3 people · 9 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
jmmv · 2026-06-29
Two years ago, I spent time studying the Windows NT kernel internals and ended up writing a comparison against Unix here: https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/windows-nt-vs-unix-design . What I came out of that exercise with is that NT is actually well-made and was very ambitious and advanced at the time it was designed (although free systems have caught up by now).
But what I also came out thinking was: none of that shows. The kernel is great, sure, but all of the crap that has been built on top doesn't let it shine, and that's what people interact with. Take Windows 11 with is dog-slow file manager and the overall feeling that everything is bloated and designed to annoy you. I wish there was a simpler edition... but it ain't gonna happen.
psd1 · 2026-07-08
That's a good reason, I might do the same. I certainly used to twiddle that setting trying to make space for Sim City 2000 on an 80MB disk.
I see a major footgun in memory compression that Linux doesn't care about - it'll just oomkill your shit, hence TFA. But footguns are not acceptable in mass-market software. Apple also removes them.
It's easy to look at the half-baked ui libraries and fucking Teams and fucking SharePoint and conclude that Microsoft engineers are stupid. But, for your interest: https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/windows-nt-vs-unix-design
matltc · 2025-02-04
https://blogsystem5.substack.com/about
https://www.twoscomplement.org/#podcast
The latter includes full text transcripts so I think it fits your spec
Maxious · 2024-12-30
Eg. 1 in 10 open source projects abandon bazel within 2 years. https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/bazelcon-2024-recap
rollcat · 2024-01-19
I checked, and it was Win3.11 that came on 8 floppies! https://archive.org/download/dos-622-3
Windows 95 was almost 30: https://ia803207.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22/items/win…
Another fun article currently on the front page, diving into the insanity that is 8086/286/386 addressing modes: https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/from-0-to-1-mb-in-dos
Even these "simple" operating systems managed to pack an incredible amount of complexity - again, just to deal with hardware, portability, different APIs, etc. Consumers - we, we demanded all of that.
If we really wanted/needed simpler software, OpenBSD is right around the corner. I've used it on&off as a daily driver for a bit, and it has an incredibly high ratio of code quality/readability vs how practical it is for everyday things (while remaining very portable). But simplicity is an uphill battle.