Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by 29athrowaway » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

bluescrn wrote: post #65

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 goin…

Maps will be useful but after EMPs and nuclear winter, consuming maps on a powered device will be impractical.

Paper maps will be far more practical.

First targets going down in a global war will be GPS, Galileo, Glonass, etc. so all those systems will go offline right away.

All power will go to water pumps, heating, air conditioning, mining, etc.

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

#72

Post by fb03 » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

qwytw wrote: post #38

knowledge-clay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How are these advantages in a post-apocalyptic world over any other OS that most people could actually use and do useful things with?

I think you are missing the point. You might not have access to any modern hardware + modern, multi MLoC operating system medium/ftp server/whatever to boot in a post-apocalyptic world. This would at least provide some level of computation on simple devices.

Even if you do have access to a modern computer which is not fried, you still need a whole bunch of devices, mass storage stuff and mains electricity to be able to boot it, and then on to find and boot some software.

The OS above would run in things like graphing calculator cpus, 8-bit video games and other "almost non-computer" devices which actually have simple but useable CPUs. It would be better than going back to the 1900s.

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

#73

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:33 PM UTC

chuchana wrote: post #67

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…

I assume they meant three decades.

Yes, indeed they did, see other comment.

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

#74

Post by knowledge-clay » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:35 PM UTC

qwytw wrote: post #38

knowledge-clay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How are these advantages in a post-apocalyptic world over any other OS that most people could actually use and do useful things with?

I would frame it differently, "collapse" can mean any number of conditions that exist in the world today -- internet access that is limited, censored/liable of being shut down, or nonexistent. Same with electricity. We also rely on institutions that may or may not represent your interests to build software that you rely upon (e.g. the decline of search, the locking-down of major social media platforms, etc), and so on.

Virgil's "collapse" mindset, to me, is about building resilience and independence, and IMO Dusk OS is fantastic at this purpose.

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

#75

Post by born-jre » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:36 PM UTC

I have read about Collapse OS (I think it is because it was about a Forth-based end-of-world OS) a while back, and it has made a lasting impression on me. This might be the reason why I enjoy easy bootstrappable/self-contained toolchain setups and single static binaries. I remember thinking at the time that this idea might be too far-fetched what is more practical approach to this, and remember I also went down the rabbit hole of exploring some Sugar OS or Kiwi something that was used to bring Wikipedia and Stack Overflow to African schools or something similar.

This might sound a little out there, but imagine a world where even if npm/cloudflare/AWS goes down or if there's a world war and intercontinental fiber connections are attacked, everything keeps working. In a strange way, I'm incorporating these ideas into my current project[0]. Thank you weird project, which might have had a much deeper impact on me subconsciously.

[0]: https://github.com/temphia/temphia

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

#76

Post by uoaei » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #19

After civilizational collapse you won't need computers, you'll need bows, arrows and basic agricultural tools that don't require motors. Forget about electricity or anything requiring it, that will be the least of your problems. Assuming there is still sunlight enough to keep photosynthesis running. If not, you may want to find some place high. And if you are going to do something like this then you really should mak…

I'd bet the US national grid would be back up in some capacity within a year. People tend to assemble in times of crisis.

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

#77

Post by notanothereric » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:39 PM UTC

I for one look forward to the post computational era … no monthly cloud storage fees, no data backup anxiety, no cookie tracking pop-ups to click ‘yes’ to … back to when I had to remember where I was driving and when the destination would close …

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

#78

Post by citizenpaul » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:40 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #19

After civilizational collapse you won't need computers, you'll need bows, arrows and basic agricultural tools that don't require motors. Forget about electricity or anything requiring it, that will be the least of your problems. Assuming there is still sunlight enough to keep photosynthesis running. If not, you may want to find some place high. And if you are going to do something like this then you really should mak…

[dead]

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

#79

Post by notanothereric » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:44 PM UTC

29athrowaway wrote: post #71

bluescrn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 goin…

Maps will be useful but after EMPs and nuclear winter, consuming maps on a powered device will be impractical. Paper maps will be far more practical. First targets going down in a global war will be GPS, Galileo, Glonass, etc. so all those systems will go offline right away. All power will go to water pumps, heating, air conditioning, mining, etc.

re: maps — I accumulated a lot if regional and national maps ( thank you AAA!!) but they do go out of date.

Major challenge with prepping is uninterrupted vigilance maintaining your supplies… which likely is an Amazon marketplace business in and of itself… lol.

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

#80

Post by MandieD » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #19

After civilizational collapse you won't need computers, you'll need bows, arrows and basic agricultural tools that don't require motors. Forget about electricity or anything requiring it, that will be the least of your problems. Assuming there is still sunlight enough to keep photosynthesis running. If not, you may want to find some place high. And if you are going to do something like this then you really should mak…

The main source of power for early radios in pre-rural electrification 1930s West Texas: small windmills that charged batteries for them - the wind is almost always blowing in West Texas. Zenith Radio Windcharger was the main type I remember seeing at the American Windmill Museum in Lubbock, a must-see if you find yourself in Lubbock for some reason.

On that note, learning CW (Morse Code) well enough to understand it by ear would be one my technical priorities if I were seriously worried about civilizational collapse, as well as more about early (pre-transistor) radio technology.