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Collapse OS

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Re: Collapse OS

#231

Post by npo9 »

VectorLock wrote: post #143
gorgoiler wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There is a range of collapses where the economic disparity would be so great to cause a distribution in the current electronic supply chain, but not so great as to destroy everything not in a bunker.

Think about a super volcano erupting, large meteor sticks, Black Plague style microorganism outbreak, a small or medium sized nuclear war, climate change lead global food shortages, late stage trade wars, and many more.

Re: Collapse OS

#232

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

yellowapple wrote: post #114
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are vastly more Z80's in circulation that Raspberry Pis.

Also, in a worse-case scenario, it's much easier to build a Z80 by hand from individual transistors and/or logic gates¹ (which would still be absurdly difficult, but not impossible) than any ARM CPU (including the ones in any generation of RPi). In a slightly-less-than-worse-case scenario, it's much easier to build a Z80-based computer by hand (i.e. with a Z80 you pulled off some other piece of hardware) than your av…

Uhm....

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Acorn_RISC_Ma...

says about 30.000 gates, which is 10.000 less than Motorola 68000 and arguably faster.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarch

at least made us Amiga and AtariST geeks envious.

Furthermore there is 'Microsequencer' like described there:

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsequencer

and following up from there to for example

[4] http://www.microcorelabs.com/mcl65.html

which is a 6502 softcore with microsequencing applied

Alas... There are many options to choose from according to the available technology, tools & knowledge. One does not have to make an exact copy of something which made sense for arbitrary reasons, which don't necessarily apply when doing it from scratch under different circumstances.

Re: Collapse OS

#233

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

dharmab wrote: post #184
hutzlibu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you manage to repair a advanced drone .. that can do scavenging in dangerous radiated areas for example (or just common drone, can scout for you). Solar panels will be valuable... But wind is easily to bild and generate as well. In general, the scenario is, that the whole world is broken down, but full of tech. So many machines to get back to working. Machines beat muscle on a scale

> that can do scavenging in dangerous radiated areas for example Most robotics don't work in areas of heavy radiation, because radiation damages electronics.

You wouldn't want to scavenge something from an area which is so irradiated that it fries electronics.

Re: Collapse OS

#234

Post by roca »

I think a useful adjunct to this sort of project would be a project that describes a really useful general-purpose CPU that can actually run a lot of advanced software but that's still as simple as possible --- and work out a realistic path for bootstrapping its manufacturing. A stripped down 32-bit RISCV for example only needs tens of thousands of gates but could run most modern software.

In conjunction with that, it would be good to have an archive of useful software and data in a durable format where access to that data can also be bootstrapped. I'm not sure what that format would be...

Re: Collapse OS

#235

Post by pjmlp »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #117

I think some sort or retro low-performance OS should start with NeXTSTEP. Ryzen processors have 80MB of L3 cache! IIRC that may have been twice what was needed to run the colorized versions of NeXT. A lot of "man the old days were all we needed" recollections of Windows and DOS forget how crappy those OSes were... But NeXT? That was basically a modern OS, with a bit less anti-aliasing. XWindow systems STILL look horr…

Being there when NeXTSTEP was new, and having done my graduation project by porting a particle visualisation engine from NeXTSTEP to Windows, seeing it being called retro low performance OS feels hilarious.

Re: Collapse OS

#236

Post by enneff »

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #177

Forth is the ideal language for bootstrapping a cobbled-together computer from whatever scraps you can find. Forth gives you a shell, an assembler, a disassembler, and a rich, extensible programming language in a few kilobytes. You can peek or poke hardware interactively, or use the REPL as a calculator. Forth-style assemblers also make cross-compilation very practical. If I was tasked with bootstrapping a post-apoca…

Here's a very nice forth implementation for the C64 (not z80-based, it's 6502, but close): https://github.com/jkotlinski/durexforth

Re: Collapse OS

#237

Post by Aloha »

icedchai wrote: post #183
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #117

I think some sort or retro low-performance OS should start with NeXTSTEP. Ryzen processors have 80MB of L3 cache! IIRC that may have been twice what was needed to run the colorized versions of NeXT. A lot of "man the old days were all we needed" recollections of Windows and DOS forget how crappy those OSes were... But NeXT? That was basically a modern OS, with a bit less anti-aliasing. XWindow systems STILL look horr…

Practically speaking, you'd be better off with a stripped down Linux or BSD. Linux from the NeXTStep era (early 90's) could also run in a few megs of RAM. My first Linux box had 4 megs. I worked at a few early ISP's that tried setting up operations on NeXT boxes. They all moved to Solaris, FreeBSD, or Linux because though NeXT looked pretty, many of the API's were a bit off and you'd have much better luck building op…

Or System 7 Unix, runs fine on a 16 bit processor, has proven history being easy to port, is a fully functional operating system, and would be pretty easy to retrofit some sort of networking to.

Re: Collapse OS

#238

Post by numlock86 »

applecrazy wrote: post #155
gdubs wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad news on that seed vault. [1] 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/19/arctic-s...

Oh, no. I can’t believe it’s gotten this bad. I’m amazed we haven’t done much in the way of climate change control. It’s going to be too late very, very soon.

> It’s going to be too late very, very soon.

Sorry to ruin this for you, but it is already too late. We are already in the process of damage control.

Re: Collapse OS

#240

Post by unixhero »

Aloha wrote: post #237
icedchai wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically speaking, you'd be better off with a stripped down Linux or BSD. Linux from the NeXTStep era (early 90's) could also run in a few megs of RAM. My first Linux box had 4 megs. I worked at a few early ISP's that tried setting up operations on NeXT boxes. They all moved to Solaris, FreeBSD, or Linux because though NeXT looked pretty, many of the API's were a bit off and you'd have much better luck building op…

Or System 7 Unix, runs fine on a 16 bit processor, has proven history being easy to port, is a fully functional operating system, and would be pretty easy to retrofit some sort of networking to.

There are millions of millions of x86 computers and free software to run on them from any era. That should suffice for a collapsian civilization. Unless it's full on Mad Max post apocalyptic we're talking about.
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