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Intellivision Operating System Revealed
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the IntyOS site, which has released Version 0.2 Alpha of a "multitasked operating system for the Intellivision console." According to the site, IntyOS "..includes a powerful GUI which handles a mouse pointer, windows, menus, icons, etc", and was "..written from scratch in CP-1600 assembly language in order to fit exactly to the hardware specificities of the Intellivision. Its main goal is now to see how far it's possible to go with today's technologies on such a limited system from the early 80's" There's also a site mirror available, and the demo ROM is viewable in a Java applet.
Bye Bye IntOS. Slashdotted in 0.33 seconds.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
But will it still play Burgertime?
Can I still use my old intellivision games with this?
Gibble: Descriptive of an emotional state in which one's mind is scrabbling for some purchase on reality
Sounds like it was fun to develop. Hehe now some people need to code lots of apps for it like P2P ;)
And so how long before someone ask can the OS be used for a beowolf cluster?
can Doom run on it yet?
Why do this? Because it's there? I have a Tandy 102 without a working "P" on the keyboard someone could have. Maybe it would be neat to write a OS without using any P's.
The best way to do is to be.
http://intyos.spatula-city.org/
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
whats next, getting linux to run on an abacus?
The old Intellivisions didn't need a fan right? Just take the guts and stick it into a l33t case. It already has video out right, as well as audio. This could be a sweeet part of your home entertainment system or in your car. If you had a big enough cluster of them in your trunk, you might even be able to play a 8kbps mp3! I bet VIA is shaking in their boots, expect a lawsuit from them on these guys any minute now!
I swear, this is still more proof that *BSD is dying.
sulli
RTFJ.
How come nobody has posted a lame joke about SCO suing Intellivision yet?
YOU GUESSED IT! INTELLIVISION!! You win the right to GO OUTSIDE!
o manycaps
lamefiltersuxlamefiltersuxlamefiltersuxitsnotto
no kidding yo! :-)
Imagine a Beowolf cluster of these!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
If someone can fit a GUI'd, multitasking OS in such a small amount of physical memory, why does Windows have to take up so much, or even Linux for that matter? I realize that programming in assembly is a bitch over C++, but surely Microsoft, with it's paid developers, could accomplish something streamlined like this.
I wish Gates would hold off on innovation for a couple of years to produce such a beast. I, for one, would gladly pay for an Assembly-optimized, thoroughly bug-fixed version of Windows.
My first console was the Intellivision. Bought it so that I could program it when they released the keyboard. Still waiting.
wanged.
Way to break the link slashdot.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
Hehe the OS keeps crashing in the JAVA demo.
... there is no way to make your own Intellivision cartridges. I still have my Intellivision I and II (the brown one and the gray one) and they're still working! I'd be nice to try this on a real Intellivision.
So wait, someone's installing an OS on a retro system... it isn't Linux... yet it's being posted on Slashdot?
What's going on here?
http://mediagoblin.org/
they must've been hosting their website on that intellivision...
"If someone can fit a GUI'd, multitasking OS in such a small amount of physical memory, why does Windows have to take up so much, or even Linux for that matter? "
Portability. Ease of development.
... a Beowulf cluster of Intellivision running IntyOS ! w00t !
:wq
Think about all the code and ram and stuff taken up for the crash window messages in Winders. Each one is a separate bitmap. Just one blue screen takes up 1024x768x4 bytes and they have lots of them.
That's funny... Under their demo, Click tools, then CPU Load and watch the digits fly.
A next step will certainly be to add an Internet connection ;-)
16-bit porn!
"Intellivision Operating System Revealed" ... to be MS-DOS? CP/M? Multix? Come on, I'm dying here!
The local cable TV system in Dubuque Iowa did an experiment with Intellivision, back in the day. Intellivision users could get a special cable adapter and play other users across the cable net. This was the first networked multiuser video game system in the world. The system also offered text chat. It was a short-lived experiment, IIRC it only lasted a year or two, then Group W Cable discovered it wasn't making any money on it, so they pulled the plug. Still, it was an awesome precedent.
Have you tried to use the Intellivision OS to revise your resume, do email, or read stupid-ass posts like YOURS on slashdot?
Read this article DUMBASS... this "OS" does BASICALLY NOTHING... now please try GOING OUTSIDE and maybe GOING ON A DATE for once in your life.. give up the MS bashing, no girl is going to like you because YOU BASH MS!! IDIOT!!!
The full keyboard componant was never released, true, but if you want to do some BASIC programing on it, please feel free to get the computer componant that was released, which includes a simple keyboard, and the ability to use a few carts that the basic one can't: Mr. BASIC Meets Bits And Bytes, Scooby Doo's Maze Chase, The Jetson's Fun With Words, and a few others, I think. It's a neat enough gadget, you can use it to design your own mazes in Scooby Doo's, which is plenty groovy for me. I quite enjoy mine (But, then, I have five Intellivisions).
That's pretty smart, getting free advertising to a nice target demographic.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Just for the record though (Not that I'm expecting many impulse buys from you guys), the computer componant that was released only works with the Intellivision II (grey console).
color.
then what? Inty office? How long until vi is ported? emacs? Mozilla likes to run on everything, is Sun now obligated to write a virtual machine FOR the Intellivision?
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
You've got to be kidding. I didn't know Intellevision could run DOOM.
Will Grandma ever stop calling my Game Cube "Nintellevision?"
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
In a related story, Intel is suing Intellivision for infringing on their brand name. An Intel spokesman reveals that any word containing the name Intel, as well as Inside, and the letter P are considered to be the P(tm)rop(tm)erty of Intel.
Ongoing cases
here and
here.
Because obviously he has never been laid a day in his fucking life.
Hand coded in assembler for a fucking Intellivision home system?
I'd rather jack-off with barbed wire wrapped around my hands.
Wow, and it's faster than Java's own AWT ;)
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Pump Up this guys carma, that is some funny crap!
Why on earth would you bother programming an OS for the intellivision? The 30 year old system is really outdated and not worth the initivate of something else that it might warrent.
I think that if you can go ahead and make an OS for a video game system that is about 30 years old, then you can take your old XBOX and remod it with something other than what you think. Sometimes, I wonder why open source is doing so well... I mean..
You have a bunch of crazy zealots trying to make a single program, while at the same time you have huge corperations motivated to a single task and I think that if you wanted to use the power in this computer that you can see, but sometimes, you guys amaze me
Slashdot is the biggest crack pot of open source crackheads that i've ever seen.
If you really want to get something done, sometimes you have to do it yourself.
And if you want to be the way that you are, then do it, but for now if you really want to see some action in the Open Source (tm) market, you need to get some real skills from places like MIcrosoft, or someplace other.
In closing, I'd like to present an idea... sort of like a huge distributed computing project.. like SETI@HOME
Now, if you could use the same distributed computing power of places like seti@home then you could inevitably use it for otehr things, like decrypting RC5, or unravelling the human genetic code... something useful, not some stupid alien search.
It's like in the movie K-PAX, where the guy thinks he is from some weird planet orbiting a binary star system, but in reality he's just some mental patient that has gone totally nuts and has a strange case of savant syndrome.
Now, if he really did exist in that way, you might think that he can go a long way in the ways of a savant, but I think that if you think that he's correct, you might be the one to unravel the mystery.
Sometimes, I wonder how easy it wuold be to decrypt these library computer passwords, using l0phtcrack and whatnot, but I'd opt for the eaiser choice and not.... hacking is bad, and you are all morons for reasing this cesspool that is SLASHDOT, THANK YOU ALL FOR LISTENING
MODDED -4 TROLL!!
LONG LIVE TROLLS
They were awesome, a spectecle of graphics and sound. The controllers looked more like telephones mixed with a tv remote. Anyone remember that metallic disc? I also remember getting a B52 bomber with the voice synthesis cartridge addon for it. Hardly understable, I was amazed at the time haha. Memories..
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
A big one is hardware abstraction. Sure, you can produce a 100% optimised 100% assembly program for a given system configuration. However I for one value the ability to have different hardware. For that you need abstraction. The Os needs to present a unified API for a given function (like OpenGL for graphics) and then handle the abstraction to the driver layer.
Another bigge is features. So great, they got a multi taking OS that runs a clock and such on an old system. Show me one that does the same things Linux or Windows does (like have a full featured web browser, 3d graphics, sound, etc) and then I'll jump on the bloat train.
Then there are others like maintainability, expandibility, portability and so on. Go ahead and write a major application, like something on the order of Office or Mozilla in pure assembly. Supposing you can even tackle that task, then try and maintain it. For even more fun, try porting it. You'll quickly see why C++ is a plus.
Yes, modern stuff does tned to suffer form some bloat since hardware allows it, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons to use the extra power available.
does it come with potatoe batteries?
Now THAT's computational power...complete with crappy 8-bit music. I love it! I'm always impressed when people go out of their way to write OS's for obsolete hardware of such small footprint. Makes my LC III running Linux look..so..ordinary.
...because it's possible
___________________________________
www.32bitwonder.org
www.brownsauce.org
I'd read the article, but I have 25,000 lines of VHDL to write today.
*sigh* :-(
--- Ban humanity.
php .. linking to a java applet ... on slashdot .. please make it stop ..
You just need to look a tiny bit harder to see the value in any project. Say, for instance, you are mentoring a kid who is really interested in old console systems and computer programming. Point him in the direction of this project, and you'll keep him interested and out of trouble. Learn to accept the fact that people have incredibly varied interests, instead of complaining about things which are of no interest to you.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
I knew their was a good reason I left that classic system around besides for Poker and Donkey Kong. I just wish there were a source for those Intellicarts still. I bet it wouldn't be hard to program tic tac toe for the os. I should probably look into it...
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
All those man hours...could probably be better spent in any number of ways... Sorry, but I just don't see the value in a project such as this one.
...
And my time could be spent far better than by responding to your obnoxous flamebait post, but I just couldn't let it slide -- I despise this attitude, every time it pops up in technology, government, education,
There are smart and creative people out there. Every day, these people do things for no particular reason other than their own curiosity, education, and betterment. This is the human spirit at its finest. Sometimes these things become the foundation of new discoveries, sometimes they just get written up and provide inspiration, information, or amusement for others.
But the fact is, it's none of your business how these people you don't know spend their time. And since we're sharing our personal opinions here anyway, mine is that your time would be better spent learning HTML and doing something productive rather than posting anonymous ignorant criticisms of people who accomplish more than you could ever dream of.
AFAIK, Intellivision was the first system to have a RTS/SimCity-ish game: Utopia. You controlled a couple of islands, and had to collect resources and such. Very fun and innovative game for the day.
The value of an Intellivisions console at your local thrift store has now risen from $7 to $8!
When will RMS insist that it is "GNU/IntyOS" ?
Oh yeah, portability is a big issue with Windows which now runs on Intel, Intel, and Intel.
They don't need to write it all in ASM, but I for one cannot fathom what takes up all the space in, say, WinXP. My windows directory was well over 200MB when I first installed, and is now approaching 1GB.
You're probably a liberal. You'd think instead of my wasting time at the beach, I should be slaving in the saltmines to line your margarita.
NO CONSOLE to me has ever matched the ease and useability of the Intellivision controller. Modern football games are just eye candy and very confusing to me. With the Intellivision you had to understand plays and you could enter them privately without the other guy seeing them on the screen. If someone can see what you are about to run, what's the point? (No, I haven't forgotten that one could run backwards 70 yards and throw the ball the length of the field) Also, Utopia was true HOURS of fun between my brother and I as well as Triple Action Biplanes and Tanks. It was simple but took skill and thought.Games also required imagination. So these consoles also have historical value in the quality of games they had. The Intellivision was truly the Apple Computer of Consoles. Superior product/better graphics/easier to use & underdog.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
How am I to enjoy porn on that thing? No one likes square nipples!
GEM was written in C and it easily fits into 200K.
Besides, the API's can be written in assembler and still support call conventions for higher level languages.
OTOH, a good compiler could merely abstract assembler call conventions.
TRAP anyone?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Nope, you missed the link. When you compare the assembly source code from IntyOS to the code that SCO 'contributed' to the linux kernel, you will find a match.
SCO's IP is everywhere!
Actually.... Matel released the Aquarius home computer, which I belive was based on the intellevision platform. I'm not sure about any Colecovision Adam like upgrades for the intelivision tho. Speaking of the Adam, anyone programming a new OS for that beast?
could probably be better spent in any number of ways: #
improving open source software that people will actually *use*
raising money for your favorite charity
mentoring a kid who needs a role model
This post comes up every time somebody does a crazy project. Sorry for Karma-whoring, but I post the same reply every time.
This project is being done for fun. We people are odd beings - we do not want to spend all our time raising money for charity and writing useful code for somebody else. We like to spend both some time and money on having fun. It would be a great world if everybody was constantly productive... or maybe not.
Instead of complaining on the odd guy who actually is really creative with his leisure time, why don't you take a crack at all the people who are only sitting on their butts and watching TV or reading Slashdot.
Tor
Can I skin it to look like a ColecoVision?
Hear hear! I almost feel silly now wasting time on offtopic posting, but that deserves a couple of thumbs up. Big thumbs, too. ...I still spend hours fiddling with splicing and recording on 8-tracks for amusement value.
These people are obviously talented so surely there must be something that they could that would be much, much, much more beneficial to the computer world than this. Like another poster asked (in my words) "why is Windows so big if they can do this on such an old machine?".
and someone has WAY TOO MUCH of it appearently... :-)
But seriously, who cares about Intellivision, I want to run OpenOffice on my 2600 game console.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
It looks like it can be ported to a lot of other platforms as well, if this is any indication.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Don't know much about the Intellivision HW because I went and bought a TI which HAD a keyboard, but, yes, MOBS are the same thing.
First time I remember hearing the term 'sprites' was with my TI-99/4A, but the concept's the same. Moveable Object Blocks in case no one else has de-acronymed this yet. I would suspect 'sprites would have been the term used on the Vic-20 which had come out sometime around then or slightly earlier.
Be forewarned though, playing those games will shatter your fond memories. You really are much better getting MAME and playing the arcade versions which hold up a little better.
Wow! It's so weird how the most "off the wall" items come up soon after they're originally mentioned!
I was just talking with my wife about memories of playing Intellivision over at the next-door neighbor's house, when I was a kid.
Burgertime was, by far, the most-liked game on the system. (To be fair, I don't think the neighbor girl owned too many Intellivision games, but I recall a rather cheezy football game and a few others. Burgertime really stood out as superior.)
BOBs are Blitter OBjects. Not hardware sprites.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Not true. The ECS works with the Intellivision I as well.
Also, the full Keyboard Component WAS released in small quantities, but Mattel killed it and bought back most of the Keyboards. I actually own one.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
Well there really isn't much practical about
an OS for intellivision either lol....
But hey if it were in assembly, the whole thing would be fast and small...
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
The Aquarius home computer (jokingly called "The System for the 70s!") actually was unrelated to the Intellivision, except that both were marketed by Mattel Electronics. The actual design and manufacture of the Aquarius was handled by an outside company.
The system itself was a CP/M capable Z-80 based computer. This is in contrast to the Intellivision Master Component, which used a CP-1600 CPU and was only truly fit for IntyOS. ;-)
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
The 'free.fr' site's pretty bad, but the mirror sitting on my Linux box seems to be holding up just fine. So come slashdot me!
5:58pm up 344 days, 20:05, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
Note the date that project was released... :-)
Well, I hope they don't use any GNU code in it, otherwise Richard Stallman will cause a stink unless they call it GNU/IntyOS.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
Windows, 3.1 and prior, was originally developed in 16-bit 8088 assembly, as was the MS-DOS it rode upon.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
Err, I'm pretty sure I played with the keyboard years ago in a shop.
I had a C64 by then, so it was only of passing interest, but I'm sure I actually touched one.
Sitting here reading through this thread, checking the Intellivision-Lives site.. all of a sudden I get this pinched feeling and look down to see a thin, deep, curiously semi-circular bruise appearing on my thumb.
Oh the joys of Intellithumb...
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
astrosmash flashbacks!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
for not using verilog! ;)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This sounds like an Ig Nobel Prize candidate to me. To quote the website, "Every Ig Nobel Prize winner has done something that first makes people LAUGH, then makes them THINK. Technically speaking, the Igs honor people whose achievements 'cannot or should not be reproduced.'"
Sounds like we have a real winner, unless they've ported NetBSD to a toaster yet.
They keyboard was released in limited test markets. 4000 were made and sold (at $600 a pop!), but Mattel recalled them all for a full refund (and those who kept theirs actually had to sign a waiver).
a re /
http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/hardw
While it may serve very little practical utility, it's just damn cool that someone
was talented enough to do something like this.
I think it's fun and shows that the author of this project is bright and innovative.
Very nice...
That's one of the keyboards. What I saw was, IIRC, this:
/ 83 catalog.html#ecs
http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/media
Don't be giving homosexuals a bad name.
I, for one, would gladly pay for an Assembly-optimized, thoroughly bug-fixed version of Windows.
OS/2 is assembly-optimized in several parts (that's why the PPC version didn't take off). About the bugs,... they are different.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Some folks got it, and it was at 5 earlier, now it's at 3 so some must not have.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Why Why WHY???!!!
The pull-down menu from the website:
DESK | TOOLS
Setup
About
-----
Reset
But it is a real hip trip, I'll give you that...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
... windows/icons/menus are old ideas though. =P
Pixels keep you awake!
...starting to miss my good ol' TI-99/4A
- This can't be... - Be what? Be real?
I have an ECS, sans music keyboard for my Intellivision. Unfortunately I bought the system a couple of months after the last Intellicart was sold, so I missed out.
It seems DAMN stable ;)
-D
This just reminds me of an idea I once had. Considering that Sinclairs (like the TS1000) were so readily available at garage sales and swapmeets etc, and they have nice simple small square PCB's with a full expansion bus on one edge, I wanted to get a gang of them and make a backplane bus with some logic for communication (probably just some shared memory) and then create an expandable parallel processing 'super computer'. Just slot them in whenever you come across one for cheap...
(no, I understand the futility in really making practical use of them, but it would be interesting and nostalgic.)
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
Not to belittle this project at all, I think it's an interesting experiment, but the comment " Its main goal is now to see how far it's possible to go with today's technologies on such a limited system from the early 80's" struck me as a little uneducated. .6mHz (that's just 600kHz) 8bit 6809 CPI? OS-9 was a fully modular, multi-tasking, multi-user, real-time OS. There was a curses type windowing system for text terminals that allowed virtual consoles of sorts, and multiple "windows" on the same screen.
Wasn't it the Tandy CoCo (released in the early 80s) that allowed you to run OS-9 in 16KB of RAM on a
With a little more RAM, there was a graphical shell for OS-9 (vidram was system RAM in those days). Given that OS-9 could be made to run in a 4KB footprint, I'm not too shocked that similar features could be provided on a game console from the same time.
I think what most of today's new geeks/coders foreget is just how much code density you can pack in to a given amount of space when you code things in assembly language. No overhead or bloat from compilers and event handlers and object loaders. If you re-wrote any of the modern OSes in native assembly I think you'd be simply astonished with the speed and responsiveness.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Pretty much all consoles until the Playstation (someone correct me if I'm wrong here, I only own about 30) used an external brick transformer.
Heat-wise, though, the Intellivision was a real champ. The heatsinks on the mainboard (at least on the original, I've never taken apart an INTV2) are HUGE. I mean really, really huge. I think part of that is the power regulation inside the thing; an Intellivision took in some bizzare voltage (16v iirc), and the CPU was rather unique, not sure what it took exactly but I doubt it was 16v. Oh, but it was an odd duck, 12 bits (again, iirc).
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
And if they accomplished FAR LESS than I ever dreamt of, do I still have to learn HTML?
Another (very other) AC.
Computers are getting so complex to the point we better just focus on making one giant mega/hyper computer to be self aware. Then, that computer can do it's own hardware and software engineering for smaller devices...such as your average user PC. In other words, I think the rate of projected progress in computers is far outstripping the human eliment to manage the growing trend in technology. I mean, damn. It's getting to the point I'm having to patch bloody firmware drivers for my hardware!!
Life is not for the lazy.
"I still spend hours fiddling with splicing and recording on 8-tracks for amusement value."
Ok, now that does cross over the line. It is like my grandma and knitting. It is 'stupid' waste of your time.
Look at the INTV (which was an April Fools joke, btw). Look at Windows. Now do you see? DO YOU?
Hmmm.
What about Zaxxon ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Okay.. nostalgia time for all you techie fuddy-duddies out there. (Hmmm.. +90% of the Slashdot community? :))
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
Like my venerable Megadrive [Genesis]. This machine has not too bad at all processor, one that I believe Linux has already been run on, the question I have to ask myself is why no one has done anything with the last generation of 16 bit consoles?? Ive googled around and didnt really find anything interesting.
The 'bi-planes' game on the triple action cartridge rocks!
Me and my mate would have hours of fun on that one. You could pull some groovy stunts like stalling the plane, then flipping over backward and then end up flying the plane backwards.
Jeff
stty erase ^H
When they terminated it (Intellivision really wasn't too popular...at least in my area...ColecoVision came out too quickly) they offered each subscriber 5 games of their choice. My friend was sorry to see it go.
I thought it was a pretty nifty idea myself.
Didn't Sega try something similar with the Genesis?
A cool project!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Cheesy football game? are you joking? you could select audible offense and defense formations / pass (short/lateral/longbomb) -- that game simply ROCKED at its time.
It's debatable if the the current WIMP interface is what It's debatable if the the current WIMP interface is really what's needed on modern hardware. Arguably it's just noise: little menus and configuation thingamajigs and so on, and you end up working in a tiny part of an 18" monitor. Mimicking this on an Intellivision--while technically brilliant--is so misguided I don't even know where to begin.
with your copy of Duke Nukem Forever. We appreciate your pre-order and your patience. ;-)
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Well, at least that'd stop them using Hungarian notation...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I'd like to see what they guys could do with palm hardware or a gameboy..