[HN Gopher] Fuzix OS: Unix for the Z80 and 680x
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Fuzix OS: Unix for the Z80 and 680x
Author : aww_dang
Score : 86 points
Date : 2023-03-01 11:12 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fuzix.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fuzix.org)
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Spectrum and MTX, but no Amstrad CPC or PCW port? Seems like an
| oversight.
| euclaise wrote:
| I'd like to see this ported to TI graphing calculators
| cylinder714 wrote:
| There's KnightOS: https://knightos.org/
|
| _KnightOS will run on any upgradable Texas Instruments
| calculator based on the z80 CPU. This includes the TI-73,
| TI-83+, TI-83+ Silver Edition, TI-84+, TI-84+ Silver Edition,
| and TI-84+ Color Silver Edition. You can also run it on the
| French variations of these calculators, or in an emulator._
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Wow, there's an 8080/8085 port now! I'll have to see if I can get
| it going on my 8085 SBC.
| Avshalom wrote:
| There's also NitrOS9 for 680x, an open source clone of the unix
| like OS-9
|
| http://www.nitros9.org/battle.html
| http://www.lcurtisboyle.com/nitros9/nitros9_docs.html
| kjs3 wrote:
| NitrOS9 only runs on the 6809/6309, not earlier 680x chips.
| That said, it's an impressively useful system.
| stuaxo wrote:
| This is great. It would be good if there were screenshots, or
| even links to YouTube videos for the different platforms showing
| this in action.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Spinning up an emulator gives you to real first hand
| experience. It's very nice; I ran it a long time ago on real
| msx-2 machines. Impressive work.
| pjmlp wrote:
| They even support Sam Coupe!
| zelos wrote:
| Wow, I didn't think there were enough people who'd even _heard_
| of the Sam Coupe.
| stevekemp wrote:
| I remember being impressed at the specs of the Coupe, and
| seeing the manual was a pleasure. But even at the time it was
| released it seemed obvious it was doomed to failure.
|
| I never saw one in the flesh, but I did want to.
|
| The 48k spectrum was everywhere, and I have a giant print of
| the infamous rubber keyboard hanging on the wall behind me,
| but everything after that was always less special.
|
| (I owned a +2A, and I knew a couple of people with the +3,
| but they were very uncommon and mostly people moved on to 16
| bit machines instead of staying in the Sinclair family.)
| zelos wrote:
| Yes, I ended up with a Coupe instead of an Amiga as my
| parents knew nothing about computers and figured it would
| be a good follow on from my +2. It was a clever machine in
| some ways, but from the launch it was clearly doomed.
| pjmlp wrote:
| During 128K speccy models to Amiga transition timeframe, it
| was common to see Sam Coupes in computer stores in Portugal.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Recently learned there was a computer with dual Z80 and 68000
| CPUs (my two favorites) from Cromemco.
| jecel wrote:
| I saw one of those running Cromix. It was being sold in Brazil
| as if it were a local machine by Brascom called BR-1000[1].
| They called the OS "BR1000" as well. Some students were trying
| some examples from the manual and they weren't working. I
| suggested they replace all calls to br1000() with cromix() and
| that did the trick.
|
| Another Z80/68K machine was the TRS-80 Model 16[2]. The Sega
| Genesis[3] (or Mega Drive) was another case of these two
| processors paired together.
|
| [1] https://www.old-
| computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=533
|
| [2] https://www.old-
| computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=242
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis
| mariuz wrote:
| You can run it on Raspberry Pi Pico :
|
| How to get started with FUZIX on Raspberry Pi Pico
| https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/how-to-get-started-with-fuz...
| verytrivial wrote:
| David Given (hjalfi on YouTube) did this port I think. He
| streamed the porting process for the esp8266[1] too. GREAT
| STUFF.
|
| https://youtu.be/cDHcGY7EzUM
| tyingq wrote:
| >Support for multiple processes in banked memory
|
| This is pretty cool. Per-process memory space via old-school
| physical switching of lines to the ram chips. Using a 74xxx
| multiplexer as a dumb MMU.
| Aissen wrote:
| Fun fact: Fuzix started as legendary Linux kernel hacker Alan
| Cox's retirement project :-)
|
| Edit: it has many contributors now, clarified that it start as
| Alan Cox's project.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| I thought FUZIX started out as UZI, Unix Z80 Implementation, by
| Doug Braun.
|
| I remember seeing someone had ported it to the Raspberry Pi
| Pico but for some reason that is not mentioned on fuzix.org as
| far as I see.
|
| https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/02/23/fuzix-unix-like-oper...
| geijoenr wrote:
| I think indeed one of the starting points was UZI, it is
| mentioned somewhere in the readme or license files.
| BruceEel wrote:
| Noticed this on the Github page: We need a
| 'proper' 65C816 C compiler
|
| Aren't there any?
| bxparks wrote:
| Are there any readily available dev boards using these classic
| microprocessors (6800, 6502, 6809, Z80) that have the various
| peripherals (UART, serial USB, flash and static memory) already
| installed? A quick search on Amazon or eBay did not reveal much.
|
| That's the nice thing about the newer chips (AVR, ESP8266, ESP32,
| STM32, etc). All those peripherals are already included on the
| SoC or the dev board. It is very easy to quickly upload the
| firmware through serial-USB, and start having fun.
| cdcarter wrote:
| Tindie has a lot of various kits and boards for sale. I
| recommend "Stephen Cousins"' store:
| https://www.tindie.com/stores/tindiescx/. But there are other
| options too.
|
| WDC makes a few dev boards for the 6502, also available on
| tindie.
| kjs3 wrote:
| I just picked up one of the WDC 6502 SBCs[1] from Mouser.
| It's quite interesting.
|
| [1] https://wdc65xx.com/Single-Board-Computers/w65c02sxb/
| crb3 wrote:
| A quick search on 'Ampro' turned up
| https://www.elite.parts/ampro/little%20board$z80 which might
| do.
|
| My first CP/M computer was an Ampro Little Board 1A, sold along
| with a floppy carrying CP/M-2.2 + ZCPR3. I got a _lot_ done on
| that machine, including a text-mode MIDI editor-sequencer --
| the Z80 DART as set up could run the second serial channel (the
| first was CON to the terminal) at the MIDI baudrate and slave-
| interrupt to derive its MIDI Clocks from a sync-track recorded
| /played on a 4-track cassette machine through a Kansas City
| tape-modem.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Yeah, but Ampro hasn't made a Little Board in decades; I've
| been crusing eBay for a reasonably priced Little Board for a
| while. There are, however, a _lot_ of 'modern' Z-80 (and
| better, Z-180) SBCs running around that would be cheaper and
| easier to find. As another commenter pointed out, check out
| Tindie or google for "RC2014", for example.
| dTal wrote:
| Not a dev board, but the cheapest used Z80 machine might be a
| Texas Instruments graphing calculator. Ebay's full of them for
| pocket change. Even comes with a screen!
| bxparks wrote:
| Yeah, I've been looking at those TI calculators for a few
| years, hoping to dabble in some Z80 assembly programming for
| nostalgia.
|
| I've also been eyeing their TI-92, 92II, 92Plus, and Voyage
| 200 series of calculators. They use the 68000 processor and
| have qwerty keyboards. It looks like there is a C compiler
| for it (http://tigcc.ticalc.org/), so it ought to be possible
| to do some interesting things, like this Fuzix OS, or a
| FORTH, LISP or Lua interpreter, or a terminal program over a
| serial link to a battery-powered ESP8266/ESP32 to the
| internet over WiFi.
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(page generated 2023-03-03 23:01 UTC)