Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
YOU GUESSED IT! INTELLIVISION!! You win the right to GO OUTSIDE!
o manycaps
lamefiltersuxlamefiltersuxlamefiltersuxitsnotto
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.
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/
Chad Schell made a run of Intellicarts that let you download just about any game to your real Intellivision. It's only too bad he stopped after around 100 or so...
:)
And yes, I have one
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.
I was curious if someone familiar with older processors could explain the significance of independent MOBS? Are these small independent caches for storing sprites or something?
Sounds like they are sprites - hardware ones, that is (sometimes called 'BOBs').
You create a bitmap in video memory (video memory was a section of RAM that was accessible by the video chip), then point a hardware register to it - the hardware takes care of drawing the sprite on the screen.
Typically you animate the sprite by changing the pointer to point to a different image.
The sprite hardware typically had location register(s) as well, so you could move the sprite on the screen by changing the X/Y registers.. the C64 had two registers (split over 3 bytes) to control the X/Y location of a sprite, but some systems (such as Atari, IIRC) only had one location register (for horizontal location), and you had to redraw the sprite to move it in the other direction.
An Intellivision contains a General Instruments CP1610, which is a 16-bit microprocessor. More details available here. The Intellivision contained a rather powerful processor for it's day, which is probably why this is possible. You could buy a keyboard for it (which contained additional RAM) that allowed you to program it in BASIC.
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.
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.
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
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
BOBs are Blitter OBjects. Not hardware sprites.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Yes. Someone at Texas Instruments apparently coined the term "sprite." I believe Karl Guttag once told me who came up with the term, but the name eludes me. They came up with it while developing the TMS9918 VDP. (The 9918A is the chip that the TI Home Computer and the Colecovision used. The 8-bit NES used a descendent of that chip. Karl was on that chip's design team.)
I'm pretty sure "MOB" was the term Commodore used in connection with its VIC chips. I don't know what term General Instruments used, other than 'objects', so I adopted the Commodore name.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
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.