Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

duskos.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 152 posts

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#61

Post by addisonl »

lsp_trw wrote: post #39
anon7725 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Light at night to work was a major achievement for humanity and there are still many lacking it reliably today. It would continue to be useful post collapse. Portable solar panels + lithium battery banks would be quite useful indeed.

Lithium batteries will be dead within a decade. Solar panels within 3. Think about that the next time you cheer on a huge solar installation as a win for the planet.

Solar towers have lifespans longer than our own https://clearspanenergy.com/renewable-energy/solar-tower/#:~....

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#62

Post by ryanianian »

jacquesm wrote: post #49
lsp_trw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lithium batteries will be dead within a decade. Solar panels within 3. Think about that the next time you cheer on a huge solar installation as a win for the planet.

Solar panels will work a lot longer than 3[edit: 0] years. I've got a batch here of 16 of them that are from the early 00's and that are still producing ~80% of their rated power. They're not even particularly good cells. Lithium batteries will indeed likely not last for a decade but that has nothing to do with solar installations, though you could combine them (but you'd have a choice of chemistries and for stationa…

Parent comment said solar panels would last 3 decades, not 3 years.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#63

Post by callalex »

lsp_trw wrote: post #39
anon7725 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Light at night to work was a major achievement for humanity and there are still many lacking it reliably today. It would continue to be useful post collapse. Portable solar panels + lithium battery banks would be quite useful indeed.

Lithium batteries will be dead within a decade. Solar panels within 3. Think about that the next time you cheer on a huge solar installation as a win for the planet.

As opposed to fossil fuel infrastructure? I am not seeing your point.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#64

Post by jl6 »

nbow wrote: post #42
jl6 wrote: post #36

I like the idea of exploring what it means to optimize a system for simplicity. But the “collapse” backstory seems silly and redundant, and dare I say it reminiscent of the kind of prepper that relishes the prospect of apocalypse, just so that all their prepping pays off.

Seeing civilizational collapse or decline as far fetched is a direct result of your privileged position in the world.

It’s more a result of being old enough to have seen countless histrionic doomsday predictions not come true.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#65

Post by bluescrn »

29athrowaway wrote: post #44

If civilization collapses and you live on your own, you will not have much data to store, organize, etc. Therefore a computer won't be that useful to you. What will be a priority to you will be to survive, which essentially means how to get drinking water and nutrition, as well as territorial control and self defense. A computer will be useful to you if you become a ruler that is responsible for the census, taxation,…

Having a large collection of offline reference books, maps, and music/movies for entertainment would still be desirable for those who can find a way to power/charge a device.

Rather than building a 'collapse OS', maybe just hoard some reference material, and have a plan (and multiple backup plans) for powering/charging devices in the absense of a power grid or fuel for generators/vehicles.

I don't think anyone's going to be doing much coding in a post-collapse world, let alone tinkering with the internals of an OS

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#66

Post by jacquesm »

lsp_trw wrote: post #43
jacquesm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will last a few hundred cycles and then you're done. Anything that you rely on in a situation like that should be 100% maintenance free and should not rely on technology more complex than what you can make today in your garage with hand tools. Go over that level and it will just buy you a little bit of comfort but it won't last. Candles: yes. Solar panels+batteries+inverters: forget it. Even a basic charge contr…

We can get to working semiconductors in our garages relatively easily. They won't be anything like the integrated circuits we have today. It would be an interesting hard sci-fi novel to see the village black smith replaced by the village semi-smith and wind mill replaced by the nuclear mill.

> We can get to working semiconductors in our garages relatively easily.

Yes, if you rely on a bunch of hard to obtain tech, a stable energy supply, relatively pure starting chemicals and a whole pile of tooling. I'm aware of Jeri Ellsworth and Sam Zeloof, both are off the charts smart and capable and put the lie to the 'relatively easily' for anything approaching usable devices in quantity.

You'd be better off to learn how to wire relays, assuming you're going to find enough power. It's much easier to get to reliable logic circuitry via that route than it is by homebrew semiconductors, that's an optimization that you can do without if you have nothing. Even tubes would be simpler. And much, much easier to make. Nothing that you couldn't do with early 1900's technology.

Nuclear power in such a situation will likely only kill the operators. Wind power could be relied on for many decades, the Jacobs Wind Electric powerplant that was installed in the arctic still worked decades later under some of the most harsh conditions on the planet. Keeping it simple is key to anything that needs to work in such a setting.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#67

Post by chuchana »

jacquesm wrote: post #49
lsp_trw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lithium batteries will be dead within a decade. Solar panels within 3. Think about that the next time you cheer on a huge solar installation as a win for the planet.

Solar panels will work a lot longer than 3[edit: 0] years. I've got a batch here of 16 of them that are from the early 00's and that are still producing ~80% of their rated power. They're not even particularly good cells. Lithium batteries will indeed likely not last for a decade but that has nothing to do with solar installations, though you could combine them (but you'd have a choice of chemistries and for stationa…

I assume they meant three decades.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#68

Post by Gordonjcp »

lsp_trw wrote: post #39
anon7725 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Light at night to work was a major achievement for humanity and there are still many lacking it reliably today. It would continue to be useful post collapse. Portable solar panels + lithium battery banks would be quite useful indeed.

Lithium batteries will be dead within a decade. Solar panels within 3. Think about that the next time you cheer on a huge solar installation as a win for the planet.

I'm currently using equipment that's working perfectly well running on NiCads and solar panels that are only a little younger than I am. I expect in another 50 years they'll be a bit on the tired side, but it won't be my problem.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#69

Post by Gordonjcp »

knowledge-clay wrote: post #30
throwawayadvsec wrote: post #12

what advantages would this have over something like IDK, debian?

It's much, much, much simpler and more compact. The core system is about 8000 lines of code. The C compiler is 1400. Its memory footprint is extremely small (1MB to have a C compiler running on bare metal in the PC architecture). From here, you have a system capable of building C programs as well as bootstrapping itself. This is level of simplicity is staggering and empowering -- it is completely reasonable to read a…

If you're writing it in Forth, why bother having a C compiler?

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#70

Post by jacquesm »

ryanianian wrote: post #62
jacquesm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels will work a lot longer than 3[edit: 0] years. I've got a batch here of 16 of them that are from the early 00's and that are still producing ~80% of their rated power. They're not even particularly good cells. Lithium batteries will indeed likely not last for a decade but that has nothing to do with solar installations, though you could combine them (but you'd have a choice of chemistries and for stationa…

Parent comment said solar panels would last 3 decades, not 3 years.

Ah yes. But still: solar panels will just degrade, they will work until they are physically damaged. People replace them because they want more power for a given surface area, usually not because the panels no longer work though there were some pretty bad batches from certain manufacturers where the backing delaminates or where there is water ingestion. Those are no longer safe. But well made panels should last a long, long time. They are warrantied for 30 years, I'd expect them to last a multiple of that unless they get impact damage.
Post reply on HN