Collapse OS — Bootstrap post-collapse technology_News & Media

Collapse OSBootstrap post-collapse technologyWinter is coming and Collapse OS aims to soften theblow. It is a Forth (why Forth?) operating system anda collection of tools and documentation with a single purpose: preserve theability to program microcontrollers through civilizationalcollapse. It is designed to: Run on minimal and improvised machines. Interface through improvised means (serial, keyboard, display). Edit text and binary contents. Compile assembler source for a wide range of MCUs and CPUs. Read and write from a wide range of storage devices. Assemble itself and deploy to another machine.Additionally, the goal of this project is to be as self-contained as possible.With a copy of this project, a capable and creative person should be able tomanage to build and install Collapse OS without external resources (i.e.internet) on a machine of her design, built from scavenged parts with low-techtools.StatusThe Collapse OS project is completed!It can be downloaded here. Highlights: Runs on Z80, 8086, 6809 and 6502 machines with very little resources. See hardware support list. Can assemble Z80, AVR, 8086, 6809 and 6502 binaries. Can disassemble 6502 and 6809. Can emulate 6502 and 6809 (in Collapse OS itself!). Can program AVR microcontrollers. Has a command line text editor similar to Forth's traditional editor as well as a visual text editor inspired by UNIX' VI. Has a visual binary editor. Has the full power of a reasonably well-featured Forth interpreter. Exceedingly simple: The "real" portion of the code (excludes CVM, POSIX tools, doc, but includes everything a post-collapse computer would need to fullfill its purpose on all supported devices) is less than 200 kilobytes. Runs on any POSIX environment through a VM implemented in C. Built from a POSIX environment with minimal tooling: only cc, make and curses are needed. Getting startedCollapse OS can be downloaded here.Documentation is in text files in "doc/". Begin with "intro.txt". Alternatively,James Stanley hosts anonline Collapse OS documentation browser.Another interesting alternative for documentation isMichael Schierl's PDF export of it(code that generates it).Unlike James' export, it's not automatically kept up to date, but it's a greatway to print the whole thing at once.You can also try Collapse OS directly on your browser withMichael Schierl's JSCollapse OS emulator which is awesome but it isn't always up to date. The"Javascript Forth" version is especially awesome: it's not a z80 emulator, buta javascript port of Collapse OS!FundingYou are inspired by Collapse OS and would like to fund its development? I don'tdo any kind of crowdfunding, but if you happen to be a rich philanthropist,maybe we can do something.Discussion The best place to discuss the project is on its private mailing list. Collapse OS was previously hosted on Github and it has a few interesting discussions in its issues. A lot of questions that you might have may already have been anwered in a big discussion about it occurred on Reddit. I've answered many questions there.There was also a nice conversation on Hacker Newsabout Collapse OS (and then another oneand another one),but I didn't participate because I don't have a HN account. Also, thiscommunity doesn't seem collapse-aware (although they did seem to warm up to theidea lately) so the idea of participation into this discussion seemed tediousto me. But the user "yellowapple" did a good job of answering many questions ina way that is similar to what I would have.Related effortsHere is a list of related efforts that I find noteworthy: Public Domain Books to Restart Computer Technology Civboot: a civilizational bootstrapper Simplifier Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ The Vintage Technology Digital Archive A big collection of Apple-related documentation Daniel Marks' electronic designs focusing on resilience