Strange Constraints

Research into technical projects built with intentional limitations or unusual philosophies. Unlike abandoned projects, these are alive and working — the constraint is the point.

Operating Systems

TempleOS

One person (Terry Davis) spent 20+ years building a complete x86_64 OS that runs entirely in ring-0 — no memory protection, no virtual memory, no network. Created following "divine instructions" to be "God's official temple."

The constraint makes it impossibly fast: boots in ~1 second, runs in 512MB RAM. Crashes if you do anything wrong, but reboots instantly. "It's a kayak, not a Titanic."

81,303 lines of code total, including kernel, compiler, graphics, games. Extreme simplicity through removing all safety.

Plan 9 from Bell Labs

"Unix 2.0" by Unix's original creators (Ken Thompson, Rob Pike). Everything is a file, taken to the extreme: network connections, processes, even remote machines — all accessed as files through 9P protocol.

Technically superior to Unix in many ways. Failed because Unix was "good enough" and switching required too much effort. Tragedy of the second system.

Legacy: invented UTF-8, introduced namespaces, influenced Go language.

GNU Hurd

Stallman's microkernel OS. Decades of development, still not production-ready. The constraint (microkernel architecture) values purity over pragmatism. More stable and modular than monolithic kernels, but slower.

Architecture as ideology.

Suicide Linux

Every typo on command line executes rm -rf /. Shell Russian roulette. No luck — only human error determines survival. "Experienced to its fullest as superuser."

Extreme stakes computing. The constraint makes every keystroke matter.

Code Size

A Mind Is Born

Audiovisual demo for Commodore 64 in exactly 256 bytes. Contains full song (64 bars, 3-voice synthesis), procedural visuals, 8 structural sections, finale that resets the machine.

Every byte serves multiple purposes:

• BASIC line number is code constant
• SID register shadow is palette + clock + melody seed
• Stack is font definition
• Visual glitches from interrupts are features
• Code modifies itself during execution

Won 1st place at Revision 2017. The constraint is focusing lens: when you have only 256 bytes, side effects become features, accidents become art.

Philosophy as Constraint

suckless.org

Community building minimal software (dwm, st, surf, dmenu). Core philosophy: "The more code lines you have removed, the more progress you have made."

From their manifest:

"Most hackers are proud of large codebases. This is simply a delusion. Code complexity is the mother of bloated, hard to use, and totally inconsistent software. Ingenious ideas are simple. Ingenious software is simple."

Configuration requires editing source and recompiling. Features intentionally missing if they add complexity. Target advanced users who value simplicity over convenience.

Progress measured in lines removed. Constraint becomes code review metric and community identity.

cat-v.org

Curated list of "harmful" software with simpler alternatives:

• Harmful: XML, YAML → Use: JSON, plain text
• Harmful: C++, Java, Python → Use: C, Go
• Harmful: Bash, zsh → Use: rc, ash
• Harmful: GNU autoconf, cmake → Use: mk, plain makefiles
• Harmful: Vim, Emacs → Use: Acme, Sam, ed

Ken Thompson: "One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code."

Not just preference — systematic critique with concrete alternatives, mostly from Plan 9 ecosystem.

Other Examples

NixOS: Entire filesystem is atomic/immutable. Upgrades entire OS at once — either get brand-new OS or nothing. Functional programming applied to operating systems.

Redox: Entire OS written in Rust, including kernel. Safety through language choice, not just design.

Haiku: FOSS reimplementation of BeOS with minimalist philosophy (like haiku poetry). Not bogged down by backwards compatibility — cleaner evolution.

Why These Matter

The constraint creates both:

• Technical challenge: how to make it work?
• Philosophical statement: why this matters?

TempleOS removes all protection to be fast. A Mind Is Born multi-purposes every byte. Suckless measures progress in deletion. Plan 9 unifies everything through one protocol.

Not limitations — focusing lenses. The constraint forces you to think differently, find elegant solutions, question assumptions.

Some succeed (UTF-8, namespaces from Plan 9). Some fail (Plan 9 itself). Some are ongoing experiments (Hurd, Redox). Some are art (A Mind Is Born). Some are philosophy (suckless, cat-v.org).

All are more interesting than software that tries to do everything.