Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, honestly, I think for that type of knowledge, Wikipedia is actually a very bad starting point. It could have become something like that, but ... I blame Deletionism, and more importantly, the general aversity to "know how" pages. Yes, you could relearn math from Wikipedia, but I'm not sure there's enough stuff in there that somebody who didn't already know how would be able to recreate half-way modern antibioti…
Now I'm suddenly tempted to write up some kind of program that'll automatically archive not just the Wikipedia pages themselves ¹, but also their citations and external links. Or maybe (probably) someone else has already written such a program. ¹ I vaguely recall Wikipedia already provides some way to download all pages in bulk, but I can't seem to find it (if it even exists anymore, or if it ever actually existed in…
Collapse OS
141–150 of 323 posts
Re: Collapse OS
#142Anyone wondering why the Z80 chip, just read the FAQ: https://collapseos.org/why.html "The z80 has 9000 transistors. 9000! Compared to the millions we have in any modern CPU, that's nothing!"
No, it's 9000. That's not nothing. You may be able to scavenge old ones for a long time, but building new ones will be non-trivial.
Non-trivial is still better than outright impossible.
Re: Collapse OS
#143I was pontificating about my 401k fund and what I should do if I find it no longer exists when I need to start using it. The older gentleman who was polite enough to listen to me said, "It's ok guy, if that 401k doesn't exist, then neither will you". And so I think I will not stockpile any computers for later. I do like the engineering spirit of this however.
I skimmed the announcement and it took a while to grok this comment of yours. Now I do, it all seems so much more awesome. An OS for a hobby project CPU, made with 9000 transistors, but for a future where society has collapsed . The first link on CollapseOS’s announcement called “Winter is Coming” has it all: https://collapseos.org/why.html
He mentions that its only applicable in a certain range of collapse-severity, I'm wondering what kind of scenario he foresees that would lead to that type of collapse?
Re: Collapse OS
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now I'm suddenly tempted to write up some kind of program that'll automatically archive not just the Wikipedia pages themselves ¹, but also their citations and external links. Or maybe (probably) someone else has already written such a program. ¹ I vaguely recall Wikipedia already provides some way to download all pages in bulk, but I can't seem to find it (if it even exists anymore, or if it ever actually existed in…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
Nice, thanks!
Re: Collapse OS
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's 9000. That's not nothing. You may be able to scavenge old ones for a long time, but building new ones will be non-trivial.
Non-trivial is still better than outright impossible.
Well, the first transistor was in 1947. The Z80 was first manufactured in 1976. That's 29 years of improvements in manufacturing technology before the Z80 was manufacturable. So if we have to start over, the Z80 is sure better than the Pentium (or at least, we can make it first), but it's still outright impossible for quite a while.
Re: Collapse OS
#146Reminds me of the anime series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Stone
Pretty good series btw.
Re: Collapse OS
#147A neat idea! I think we could also get started now. Not necessarily de-escalating tech, but realizing that the fundamental supply of newer, more powerful chips might not last even with a shift to more plentiful supplies of rare-earth metals due to our need to get off of fossil fuels, fast. I think it might be useful in the more immediate term to be able to lock-in the minimum set of features that make the web and Int…
" Simply being able to send a message to someone would be a big deal. " The simple way would be radio morse
Or packet radio [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio]?
Re: Collapse OS
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the current size of the world's population - is dependent on a lot of programmable devices. Not to mention the energy supply chain. If the supply chain required to make electronics collapses, that probably also means the energy supply chain has collapsed, or has at least been severely disrupted. That seems far more likely to be damaging and far more quickly that a lack of ability to keep a microcontroller running.…
The energy supply chain is also in turn dependent on a bunch of microcontrollers (and also macrocontrollers, if there's such a word), all the way from power plants to distribution networks. So if we want to keep those running, we'll need to make sure we have the ability to repair/replace that hardware, too.
> (and also macrocontrollers, if there's such a word),
Not really, but the idea is sound. There's a hierarchy of control in electricity generation.
* At the bottom level you have microcontroller driven control loops sitting within the plants themselves. These operate on a sub-second timescale and do things like balance air/fuel/etc. flow through the plant to keep it safely running and stable.
* The lowest level loops take their setpoints and controls from a higher level set of controls that work at the level of the generating unit. Those work along the lines of 'generator 1 produce 200MW and ramp to 300MW over the next 3 hours.'
* Above that are control loops run by the grid operator that dispatch plants to match the amount of generation. (And do so in a safe and economic way).
* Above that are (can be) a series of nested power markets ranging in duration from real time, daily, monthly, etc.
* Above that are (can be) long term capacity markets that help ensure there's enough capacity within a grid to serve future load needs.
(So there are a lot of things that might qualify as 'macrocontrollers'. :-) )
Re: Collapse OS
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Big solar flare. Grid goes down. Could take years to get it back up. https://www.cnet.com/news/we-arent-ready-for-a-solar-storm-s... Near miss in July 2012: https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/2...
We're near a new Maunder minimum, so becoming less and less likely. Also, while I think a big solar flare would break a lot of stuff--- I think we're better prepared for it than many give us credit for. Tens of millions of people might be initially without power; some fraction of them may need to wait for a long time (months or even years) to get it back; and various bits of transport and production may get disrupted…
Interesting, thanks
Re: Collapse OS
#150I don't think just developing a Z80 operating system is enough. The whole ecosystem needs to be preserved. In agriculture, we have the doomsday seed vault [0] just for this purpose. If we anticipate collapse of the current economic system or society, I think we should build a doomsday computer vault, that keeps everything we need to rebuild the computing industry in a underground bunker. It keeps everything we need i…
This is already being done in some places, eg libraries and museums, it's called Digital Preservation, although it's for normal curatorial purposes rather than Doomsday scenarios.
While the focus is on the data, it also necessarily involves access to original hardware at times, which is additionally also often stored for curatorial purposes in its own right.