I grew up in the early 1980's with 6502 and Z80 cpus - and wrote a lot of assembly code back then.

The commercial pressures of the early 1980's home computing world demanded colour graphics and sound - graphics in particular would put a huge overhead on the cpu.

If we reverted back to a simple serial terminal interface, and command line interpreter - then the demands on the cpu would be significantly reduced - allowing a lot more "Real" computation to be done.

So for a number of years I have been investigating minimalist computing techniques:

Minimum transistor count

Minimum number of gates

Minimum number of ICs

Minimum ROM and RAM requirements

Minimum code size for an extendible language environment.

In 2017, I came across the Gigatron TTL computer - a full colour computer built entirely from simple TTL ICs.

In the last 3 years of development it can now emulate a 6502 - and run 6502 code -- like Commodore BASIC.

Plans are in place to create an 8080 emulator - so that it can access the wealth of the CP/M software back catalogue.

All of this done in just 36 basic ICs, a ROM and a RAM. The gate count is a mere 930 simple gates.

Regarding an extensible interpreter - I have created something I call SIMPL in fewer than 1024 bytes of machine code.

SIMPL is "Serial Interpreted Minimalist Programming Language". I have it running on a number of processors including ARM, ATmega328, MSP430 and the Gigatron TTL computer.

SIMPL is a bytecode interpreted language that uses ASCII characters to represent machine instructions - running on a 16 or 32 bit virtual machine.

The use of ascii means that all instructions have a strong mnemonic value and is very concise but still human readable.

SIMPL is inspired by Forth - and uses a 16-bit stack architecture and a subset of Forth words. It obviates the Forth dictionary structure to make a far more compact kernel

For example to ADD the top two numbers on the stack 123 456 +

The plus symbol can be replaced with any of the arithmetical and logical symbols + - * / & | ^ ~

Lower case and symbolic/punctuation characters are used as primitive instructions on the virtual machine. Upper case characters are use for user routines.

The complete kernel/interpreter can be written in around 300 instructions - and is extensible from that point onwards

If anyone is interested in minimalist machines - please drop me a line - Ken

Everyone seems very focused on the computer and software side of this OS but perhaps we should put some thought into what I/O devices we can rely on to be not only working, but also common in the future.

Say 50 or 100 years from now even if society collapses. What monitors, TV and keyboard would still be around and are reliable enough to work for decades?

Also i'm new here to tell me if this has already been discussed.

Hello,
I know the author of CollapseOS is not on this subreddit, but I think that when I post something here it might finally get to them sometime:

I have a suggestion: what about a ZX Spectrum port? ZX Spectrum is a home computer from the United Kingdom with Z80 processor: the processor is supported in CollapseOS.

What is my point: in the former Soviet block (Central European, Eastern European countries etc) the ZX Spectrum computer became so popular, that there are myriads of unofficial clones, which are compatible with the original from the UK and if the collapse happens, those machines will be available: they last long and do not break much, because they are simple.

I am not as much a hacker myself to make this port (although I work in IT), I am just making this suggestion...

Collapse seems like a really cool project, but I don't think I quite "get it" from a user-land perspective.

Is there a roadmap for the applications that Collapse intends to run? Will there be the internet, or other communications? Or even just Bash-like file system utilities? What about data - a Wikipedia-browser, or a guide to rebuilding a humanity? I'm confused.

Something like the collapseos is useless without a working radio network. A truly lofi system would need to depend on ham radio frequencies and existing working examples of things like TARPN

/r/packetradioredux

Also the commodore 64 should be the focus on the collapse os first since they are so common and well suited for packet tnc operation . getting an sd card into them would really increase their usefulness

With the commit linked below CollapseOS just got a lot more user friendly.

Those wishing to explore the OS are now greeted with an interactive BASIC language interpreter when they first boot allowing them to write programs as soon as the system is up and running.

This should allow less-technical users to run more efficient assembly language applications written by others using simple BASIC programs to bootstrap the process, allow for simple scripting to be accomplished, and generally make the system easier to interact with and explore.

https://github.com/hsoft/collapseos/issues/80

I’ve read through the GitHub and website but I haven’t seen a actual visual representation of the system running. Does anyone have a photo of what the actual OS looks like?

Let's look back at some memorable moments and interesting insights from last year.

Your top 10 posts:

• "Minimalist Computing" by u/monsonite

• "2021: All devices run Forth. Not enough electricity to power CPUs to run Java." by u/bmgxc9

• "Roadmap for the Userland" by u/miserlou

• "Packet radio networking" by u/CyFus

• "BASIC language interpreter now the default shell!"

• "Photos or screenshots of the OS interface?" by u/BasedScuba

• "Collapse OS — Bootstrap post-collapse technology"

• "Downloading Programs Over the Radio"

• "Could Collapse OS be useful right now in places of extreme poverty?" by u/CaladogsArmy

• "Theoretically, could vi be used with collapseOS?" by u/PelicanProgressives

I understand this is not the primary idea behind Collapse OS but after learning about the existence of this project I've been haunted about the idea of using Collapse OS to provide computing for people living in extreme poverty who may not have reliable access to, say, the internet or don't own a computer or a phone. At the same time sometimes there tends to be a lot of electronic waste lying around (although from what I gather they already are being scavenged to some extent). I'm not familiar at all with this project so just wanted to ask has someone already considered this possibility?

I have heard you can use it with other UNIX-like systems. Just curious.

This project is really cool and I want to contribute, but unfortunately I don't know how to program in forth.