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Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

358 points ofalkaed | 2 comments | 11 Oct 25 22:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.4s | source

Just curious and who knows, maybe someone will adopt it or develop something new based on its ideas.
1. smokel ◴[12 Oct 25 10:29 UTC] No.45557055[source]▶
The TUNES [1] operating system and programming language project. The reason for its failure are described perfectly on the archival website:

> TUNES started in 1992-95 as an operating system project, but was never clearly defined, and it succumbed to design-by-committee syndrome and gradually failed. Compared to typical OS projects it had very ambitious goals, which you may find interesting.

[1] http://tunes.org/

replies(1): >>45560550 #
2. zzo38computer ◴[12 Oct 25 18:33 UTC] No.45560550[source]▶
I had seen it before and I did find it interesting, as well as some other ideas from other systems (including Amiga, TRON, capability-based systems, etc), and I had some of my own ideas. (I had also thought of some similar ideas independently, but not all of them.) I do not completely agree with all of the ideas. Also, I think that a new computer hardware design can be made to support the new operating system (although emulation is also possible). (My own operating system idea currently does not have a name, and has some similar ideas from TUNES (and TRON, etc) and many differences.)