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Contiki Ported To x86
lt writes "The ultra-small Contiki OS has now been ported to the x86. This should give those of you who have an old x86 PC that is too small to run even the smallest of Linux variants, a chance to browse the web, set up a web server, and doing other essential stuff. If you're curious to see how it looks, there is a live VNC demo running."
Some info before it gets toasted
The web pages you are watching are served by a web server running under the Contiki operating system on an an Ethernut embedded Ethernet board, which consists of a 14 MHz AVR Atmega128 microcontroller with 32 kilobytes of RAM and 128 kilobytes of flash ROM, and a RealTek RTL8019AS Ethernet chip.
Local Remote State Retransmissions Timer Flags 80 210.214.211.245:1166 FIN-WAIT-2 0 91 80 210.49.61.249:4000 ESTABLISHED 0 3 80 216.15.124.126:61657 FIN-WAIT-2 0 25 80 209.210.4.252:54730 ESTABLISHED 0 1 * 80 200.164.245.202:33548 ESTABLISHED 0 3 * 80 216.15.124.126:61654 FIN-WAIT-2 0 21 80 217.72.69.144:1077 SYN-RCVD 0 3 * 80 208.191.17.177:1937 ESTABLISHED 0 3 * 80 172.137.24.29:3071 SYN-RCVD 6 43 * 80 208.19.133.132:38209 ESTABLISHED 0 1 * 80 192.35.35.35:35197 ESTABLISHED 0 3 * 80 66.32.100.20:57348 ESTABLISHED 0 1 * 80 160.36.251.198:56226 FIN-WAIT-2 0 4 80 160.36.251.198:56225 ESTABLISHED 0 3 * 80 160.39.180.236:53790 FIN-WAIT-2 0 36 5900 67.82.242.97:27960 ESTABLISHED 0 3 * 80 200.164.245.202:33549 ESTABLISHED 0 2 *
Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
Here's a link to a screenshot of an old /. entry about said OS. It would've been cool if the "live" VNC shot was of this slashdot discussion, eh?
8086 is 16-bit ;)
Interestingly enough I (in the past week) have thought about implementing Contiki on top of CP/M-86 4. CP/M-86 4 is a rather small OS, and can optionally run DOS programs (the infamous DOSPLUS), and I think, with tools I can easily find for free, I can code low-level stuff for it.
It can be done. IWBN, too.
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
Hah, apparently this didn't stop the Geoworks people from pulling off a fully preemptive OS on the lowly 8088.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Linux should run pretty well on that too, even with X if you have enough memory.
http://www.eznos.org
Here's an XT running EZNOS.. there's also other 8088/87 projects, a 386 and other stuff.. neat.
Also, a web server running on the original IBM PC.
I've been wating to get these people slashdotted ;)...
Whoops.. my mistake.
m
The 8086 came first, and was 16-bit throughout.
The 8088 was designed to be cheaper, as it had an 8bit external data bus.. but the processor was 16-bit.
http://firstpc.no-ip.com/en/8086/page02/x86c.ht
That page is running on an 8086, BTW.
If you'd like to do something more useful with an older system, check out GEOS. It's currently being maintained by Breadbox, who has a demo available for download. Full preemptive multitasking. Comes with a web browser (HTML 4.0, no CSS or JS), email (POP3), AIM, FTP, News Reader, and a roughly MS Works level office suite. More software is available from it at Tva Katter.
Older versions would run on an 8086 (one of the original design goals was that the WYSIWYG word processor could keep up with your typing on an 8086). The current version requires a 386. 2 megs of RAM should be fine for most things (even 1 will work ok), although you'd probably want at least 4 or 8 megs for browsing the web.
What Linux distro is similar to Contiki?
Linux From Scratch.
like RedHat, Gentoo, Suse that runs on a 486 with superior performance and uses virtual no resources like Contiki?
Yes.
but what REAL available distros are available?
Linux From Scratch.
No, you're wrong. The 8088 has a 16-bit internal architecture, however, it only brings out 8 data lines - so "word" transfers take 2 clock cycles, but you needed only 8n one-bit-wide RAM chips and one 8-bit-wide *ROM chip for the memory. Bear in mind memory was expensive when these things reigned supreme! The 8086 requires 16-bit-wide memory, hence 16n one-bit-wide RAM chips and two 8-bit-wide *ROM chips. I think it has a compatibility mode whereby it can access memory and I/O devices in 8-bit bytes rather than 16-bit words.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Steady on old boy. The jaguar was a 64-bit console, and a damn fine one at that.
Well.. let's be really correct here, it was a 32/64-bit machine.
(32 bit processor)
In my book it counts as a 32-bit machine, but in any case, it's quite a far cry from an 8-bit machine.
Just to clarify, they say that it CACHES 10 lookups in the table, and that the size of this table is configurable at compile time. So, you can lookup any domain, but it will slow you down, and on this system the difference between a cache hit and a lookup will probably be significant. However, as the link you provided states, their DNS implementation is not heavily tested, so some domail lookups may fail unexpectedly.
like g-a-r-y, only different
Nope, "US billion" was meant to clarify that it's 10^9; in other countries 1 billion = 10^12.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Since it runs on an 8088, it must use the x86 "real" mode, instead of protected mode. Which means that only 1MB of memory is addressable, so the gig of RAM is irrelevent. Contiki would only use the first 1MB.
:)
I'm sure it would be plenty fast at 3ghz though
It's still running. I didn't download their client since I have both TightVNC and ordinary VNC from before. And it worked!! I just had to reconnect after one failed attempt.
;-)
These guys know what they're doing. Impressive indeed!! I got to change Window, and delete some text, then go to the addressbar and delete some more and trying to write in an address. But there were 7 other people connected too, doing other things. If I were alone, I bet I could've used the machine just fine.
Come to think of it, I still got my old dusty C64.. Maybe it's time to revive it
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
RTFA: "An RS-232 (serial) card or Ethernet connection is required for Internet connectivity" so it should be fast enough.
The 8086 and 8088 are both 16-bit processors.
They have 16-bit internal registers ( and utilize one 16-bit page register and another offset register to acheive 20-bit memory space ). The data bus is insignificant to the definition.
The REASON "8-bit" is associated with the x86 architecture is BECAUSE the 8086 and 8088 are backward-compatible with the 8080, an 8-bit processor with a 16-bit address space.
Remember folks, the general definition of the "bits" attribute of a processor is how many bits wide the main instruction path(s) is / are.
Example: 80286: 16-bit registers, 24-bit address space, 16-bit memory bus.
Example: 80386SX: 32-bit registers, 24-bit address space, 16-bit memory bus.
Address space, memory bus width and instruction path width do not have to be the same. Do not assume they are tied together.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
And...some things won't work on a conventional turning machine, at least not in polynomial time.
You are wrong about that. Anything that can be done on a conventional computer (or a RAM if you want a theoretical model) in polynomial time can also be done on a TM in polynomial time. However it will be a different polynomial. AFAIK at most you will add one or two to the degree of the polynomial. But in the real world it is less than that which seperates feasible from infeasible algorithms. Sorting slower than O(n^2) really makes the TM look slow.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?