[Nzen]

If the language is boilerplate and the algorithms/data-structures derive from the physical constraints, was the OS course you completed mostly about hardware ?

As to the inciting question, there is a Stonybrook OS course [0] designed around a java simulator that students implement modules for. Springer published M Kifer's book [1] about this OSP2 system. (The binaries are accessible via the link 'Students: Software Download'.) I'm of the impression that the course involves examining the trade-offs of each module. So the thread section spawns a bunch of request events per process for a module to deal with, whether with round robin or priority queues or whatever.

[0] https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~kifer/Courses/cse306/

[1] https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781846288425