11–20 of 119 posts
Wait, "ROM-based systems"? Were there such x86 micros and is this saying you could run Linux from ROM? That's super interesting.
The root filesystem is only written to when you flash a new OS image
What would be really interesting: porting DOSEMU 1.4.0 to it. This would give us a maintained unix-like OS combined with a huge abandonware dos library turning those old machines into something fun and maybe useful.
Wait, "ROM-based systems"? Were there such x86 micros and is this saying you could run Linux from ROM? That's super interesting.
Interestingly, somebody has made an emulator for it.
Wait, "ROM-based systems"? Were there such x86 micros and is this saying you could run Linux from ROM? That's super interesting.
I've never seen a fully ROM-based PC, but I have worked with ISA NE2000 NICs with boot ROMs that allowed them to diskless boot into a DOS-based Novell NetWare client. It wouldn't surprise me if there were ROM-based local boot environments on ISA cards. The Cisco PIX firewall, in it's original incarnation, booted from non-volatile memory (I don't know if it was EEPROM or flash) an ISA card.
The first-gen PIX you mention had an 8M or 16M ISA flash card it booted from, containing the whole OS.
The Novell netboot is called "RPL".
Wait, "ROM-based systems"? Were there such x86 micros and is this saying you could run Linux from ROM? That's super interesting.
x86 (and licensed derivatives) were a thing in more custom handhelds like the Psion Series 3, and games systems like the Wonderswan. The variants made by NEC alone were: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_V20#Variants_and_success...
Wait, "ROM-based systems"? Were there such x86 micros and is this saying you could run Linux from ROM? That's super interesting.
- Many Tandy PC compatibles could boot from ROM to their DeskMate GUI - HP, GRiD, Zenith and others had laptops that had DOS and in some cases Windows in ROM.
- IBM's PS/1 line could boot from ROM - Many GEOS devices booted from ROM into a GUI, and often could boot to DOS from ROM too.
Most recently Al was learning Rust because he needs that for his current role, it might be fun to see whether you can write an ELKS target for Rust.
I do wonder in today’s landscape of single board computers what the right bit width is. A 64-bit system with like 1-2GB or RAM doesn’t make a ton of sense since your program size and data structure size grows by quite a bit but you don’t need it to since you don’t get to have more than 4GB of RAM. On the other hand there you do have SBCs with 8-16GBs of RAM but that’s a far cry from needing full 64 bits. Would an opt…
https://www.tech-faq.com/address-bus.html
My newish AMD laptop: `grep 'address sizes' /proc/cpuinfo`
address sizes : 48 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
>>> f'{2**32:>30_}'
' 4_294_967_296'
>>> f'{2**36:>30_}'
' 68_719_476_736'
>>> f'{2**40:>30_}'
' 1_099_511_627_776'
>>> f'{2**48:>30_}'
' 281_474_976_710_656'
>>> f'{2**64:>30_}'
' 18_446_744_073_709_551_616'I do wonder in today’s landscape of single board computers what the right bit width is. A 64-bit system with like 1-2GB or RAM doesn’t make a ton of sense since your program size and data structure size grows by quite a bit but you don’t need it to since you don’t get to have more than 4GB of RAM. On the other hand there you do have SBCs with 8-16GBs of RAM but that’s a far cry from needing full 64 bits. Would an opt…
If you're writing really space-optimised code, you can pack pointers closer together.