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Alan Cox announces Fuzix OS

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Re: Alan Cox announces Fuzix OS

#51

Post by vidarh »

femto wrote: post #19
RexRollman wrote: post #8

When I first read this, I thought this was meant to be a sarcastic statement on SystemD haters, but this is for real? I would assume this is all geared to scratching some kind of retro computing itch?

It could also be an exercise in open computing, hailing back to an era before legal attacks and ubiquitous surveillance. Being released in 1976, the Z80 architecture is well known and unencumbered by patents. It's also simple with fixed instruction timing, meaning it can be well tested, leaving few places for a back door to hide. The original hardware probably predates any surveillance programs (edit: and the silicon…

If that was the goal, basing it on something like the Motorola 680x0 family would've been a better choice:

* The architecture is already 32 bit.

* There are FPGA reimplementations, including a range of boards from different people, and open source designs (the Minimig) that people have produced working machines from.

* There's been a variety of work on producing more advanced versions of the cores, employing more modern design features.

* The M68k family has MMU support.

* There are Linux ports for M68k, as well as a number of other OS's.

Looking at his Google Plus ports, which includes various ancient hardware as well as a variety of old emulators, I think the retro appeal is more relevant.

Re: Alan Cox announces Fuzix OS

#52

Post by vidarh »

DanBC wrote: post #27
RexRollman wrote: post #8

When I first read this, I thought this was meant to be a sarcastic statement on SystemD haters, but this is for real? I would assume this is all geared to scratching some kind of retro computing itch?

People used to learn programming by learning assembly language. Here's one example for the 68000: First page of contents: http://imgur.com/1XCLrsQ Example instruction description: http://imgur.com/MV6Le34 Hello world: http://imgur.com/5yKJlQ9 Off topic but if anyone is ever in Cheltenham UK (or is prepared to pay postage) I have some old books I want to get rid of. http://imgur.com/AWV9HLn

For anyone who wants non-paper versions of stuff like this (focused on Amiga and 8-bit Commodore computers, but there's also a bunch of more generic stuff, and 6502/68000 material): http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/

Also, the M68k programming manuals should still be downloadable from FreeScale (what used to be Motorola's semiconductor division). At least they were when I looked for the last a year ago or so. They are wonderfully clear and detailed.

Re: Alan Cox announces Fuzix OS

#54

Post by boyaka »

vidarh wrote: post #51
femto wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also be an exercise in open computing, hailing back to an era before legal attacks and ubiquitous surveillance. Being released in 1976, the Z80 architecture is well known and unencumbered by patents. It's also simple with fixed instruction timing, meaning it can be well tested, leaving few places for a back door to hide. The original hardware probably predates any surveillance programs (edit: and the silicon…

If that was the goal, basing it on something like the Motorola 680x0 family would've been a better choice: * The architecture is already 32 bit. * There are FPGA reimplementations, including a range of boards from different people, and open source designs (the Minimig) that people have produced working machines from. * There's been a variety of work on producing more advanced versions of the cores, employing more mod…

Not claiming to have much understanding about any of this stuff, but here's his comment from the link:

"+retrotails prower I'm sure +Dirk Hohndel would like an Atari ST port but once you get past 286 there are better OS to run. For m68k you have to deal with the lack of segmentation or banking in most cases (so vfork not fork), but if you can do that then given you've usually got real DMA I would have thought 2.11BSD/RetroBSD a far far better place to start, or even ucLinux. Many of the 68K platforms are also blessed with other open but non-Unix OS's especially the Atari where basically all the underlying OS code you need is nowdays available in a free form (eg FreeMiNT/XaAes - which is even uses rpm)

Some of the key assumptions in UZI and thus in Fuzix really stop making sense if you have a 32bit system or you have good offloaded I/O. I'm not entirely sure those assumptions don't break down by 286 to be honest. However 286 protected mode is so wonderfully demented and feature filled it has to be done."

Re: Alan Cox announces Fuzix OS

#55

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

DanBC wrote: post #27
RexRollman wrote: post #8

When I first read this, I thought this was meant to be a sarcastic statement on SystemD haters, but this is for real? I would assume this is all geared to scratching some kind of retro computing itch?

People used to learn programming by learning assembly language. Here's one example for the 68000: First page of contents: http://imgur.com/1XCLrsQ Example instruction description: http://imgur.com/MV6Le34 Hello world: http://imgur.com/5yKJlQ9 Off topic but if anyone is ever in Cheltenham UK (or is prepared to pay postage) I have some old books I want to get rid of. http://imgur.com/AWV9HLn

People used to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow.

Re: Alan Cox announces Fuzix OS

#56

Post by glass- »

vidarh wrote: post #50
rodgerd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm familiar with the incident. I was reading LKML when it happened. It's a counterpoint to the usual "Linus's style doesn't cause any problems."

It may be a counterpoint, but it is also one of the milder rants from Linux: No expletives; no colourful descriptions. Yes, it's critical, but is the criticism unwarranted? He is questioning why one of the most senior maintainers is directly contradicting one of the most central "edicts" from Linus on the kernel development: Don't break user-land. In the message, Linus directly quotes Alan as arguing that breaking us…

If you read the whole thread Linus was wrong. He was constantly confusing two different bugs (despite Alan pointing this out to him multiple times), and the fixes he was yelling at Alan for not applying would have caused other things to break.

Re: Alan Cox announces Fuzix OS

#57

Post by boyaka »

femto wrote: post #19
RexRollman wrote: post #8

When I first read this, I thought this was meant to be a sarcastic statement on SystemD haters, but this is for real? I would assume this is all geared to scratching some kind of retro computing itch?

It could also be an exercise in open computing, hailing back to an era before legal attacks and ubiquitous surveillance. Being released in 1976, the Z80 architecture is well known and unencumbered by patents. It's also simple with fixed instruction timing, meaning it can be well tested, leaving few places for a back door to hide. The original hardware probably predates any surveillance programs (edit: and the silicon…

The creators of Intel's 4004 (arguably the beginning of the microprocessor era) and the 8080 are the same men who left and founded Zilog. I would argue that the heart (brain?) of the work making these microprocessors so great is Masatoshi Shima. Of course there were other important people involved like Federico Faggin who worked closely with Shima and brought him to start Zilog, Yoshio Kojima who recruited Shima to Busicom to start working on the calculators, and Tadashi Sasaki (Sharp) with collaboration with Robert Noyce (Intel) who invested in Kojima's company (Busicom).

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Oral-History:Tadashi_S...

Re: Alan Cox announces Fuzix OS

#60

Post by leoc »

rodgerd wrote: post #44
DanBC wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2009/7/28/373

Yes, I'm familiar with the incident. I was reading LKML when it happened. It's a counterpoint to the usual "Linus's style doesn't cause any problems."

> Yes, I'm familiar with the incident. I was reading LKML when it happened.

Probably the link was posted for the benefit of others.

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