Well, i haven't enough money to buy such bookz and stealing iznt good way ... when i started to lernt something about how o.s. works around year 1996.. there was not such books ... Btw>
thiz source code iz well documented and you shuldn't read whole source ;o)) ..

Sorry for my English ,iam only human ;o))

The best OS's I've seen for beginners are SteveOS and JeffOS...both are really easy c code on setting up the IDT, keyboard handlers, basic memory management/paging.

For something more serious, I really love ReactOS (I'm a developper in the team). It's an open-source clone of Windows NT and I'm sure in a couple of years will run more then 80% of Windows apps. The whole kernel is really enlightening to look at, and it works basically just like NT's.

Best regards,
Alex Ionescu
http://www.relsoft.net

This is the "write your own Operating System" OS-FAQ.
/http://mega-tokyo.com/osfaq2/

I must say that you are going on an adventure you'll never forget (if you stick to the path and dont run and hide.. ;) Writing your own OS is a challenge for most people. Have fun and dont bang your head against the keyboard to much. :p

Here are some links from me (warning some assembly needed :eek: :D )
hxxp://www.dynatos.org/
hxxp://board.win32asmcommunity.net/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=34