Haha! The post was actually motivated by a common (interview) question: https://github.com/alex/what-happens-when. We thought it would make for a fun adaptation for the terminal world

Would you pass this test if instead you answered what would happen if you open a terminal in a made-up operating system and you essentially designed the whole thing in your answer?

I have asked this question in interviews before, with focus on low level OS aspects. It depends on whether your made-up OS includes the things we care about.

I usually ask the question in an open way, but guide the candidate to "fast forward" past the (for us) boring parts, and focus on the interesting parts we are looking for along the way.

If your OS covers the concepts we are looking for and the answers seem competent, sure, why not. If the OS is too simple to cover everything (not unlikely for actually existing toy OS projects, I have one myself), we'd want to branch out to those concepts no matter whether you included them in your hypothetical OS or not.

In other words, ask yourself why this is part of the interview, and that should answer your question: Because you are going to work on a particular OS with particular characteristics.

I mean, points for creativity; it just depends on this made-up answer. If you're relying on transistors made up of unicorn farts and gumdrops, and the interviewer has no appreciation for whimsy, that's not gonna go over well. OTOH, if they do, that's bonus points. All I'm saying is that it's a gamble.

I would prefer this answer, it shows an ability to create anew rather than memorize rote.

Maybe I'm thinking too much of my interviewing capabilities, but I don't think rote memorization applies very much here. When I ask the question, we start out open, let the candidate drive, but ask lots of questions along the way, and at certain points get very detailed on aspects that we care about particularly (while skipping quickly over, for us, uninteresting ones).

If you "rote memorized" both the high level view and the raw details so well that you can freely think and talk about it during the interview, I'd say you'd have to have had some experience as well.

Now with this article memorized one could answer this question with rote memorization.

However most people are unlikely to have done that.

Instead if someone can provide a good answer they are demonstrating a deep understanding.

I had the same for SRE @ Google - really simple question that probes the entire free-form depth of your systems understanding.

I guess you could leave out all the hardware aspects of it - that's why I think it's not a great question myself, just too wide.