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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."
Bill Gates sells as many shares of MSFT as he can.
I have to say that running VNC on an 8bit computer is amazing. I would have looked at the screenshots, but actually playing around is so much more fun! It makes me want a C64 or old intel computer to run this on :) Does anyone know how to enter an arbitrary URI though, I couldn't do it.
:) Oh well, this will be the first article to ever slashdot a VNC server, I think.
On another note, for those who thought VNC over 100BaseT was slow, it's even slower when running at 3KiB/s
My other car is first.
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 *
the smallest os for the weakest puniest computers still in existence goes live.
click on this vnc link here to blow to smithereens.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why don't you go ahead and say, "There was a live vnc running", or maybe "or maybe there might be a live vnc running in the distant future" but never say "there is a live vnc running..."
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Yep /.ing is a cross-platform "feature" - works against Windows, Linux, and Contiki servers!
Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
This just in!
14 MHz web server Slashdotted! Oh the humanity!
What the hell is a 486? :)
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What kind of sick bastard would slashdot a VNC connection? It's bad enough when you do it to an image file server or a site with a video or ISO, but a VNC CONNECTION on a computer that is too low powered for even Linux? What is wrong with you people?
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?
Kudos to Adam Dunkels for pushing the envelope of 8-bit computing. Many people will say "whats' the point of this." or "This has no application whatsoever and is a waste of time." but I disagree. Adam is making software and designing methods of programming to run internet based programs on chips and systems that where never designed for it, like the Atari Jaguar the Atari 8-bit console not to mention the C64. This work will allow others to get the motivation to push the envelope in other areas of computing as well.
It seems Adam has what was once prevailant in the computing and electronics industry. Tinkering and programming for the sheer joy of creating something new. In this way, programming and building systems like this are very similar to creating a piece of art, contrary to public opinion and modern developments in computing. Keep up the good work Adam. You are an inspriation to hobbyists in all fields.
MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
Besides the nostalgia/geek factor of running a web browser on your C64 (which I've been doing for years, well cheating by using the 64 as a dumb terminal and running lynx)
Maybe a Contiki based PDA? Contiki based email stations? Seems you could make such things dirt cheap using this as the OS.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
...in Contiki, tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki room!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
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?
wow that OS kinda looks like a page full of characters.. oh wait
poor little server
{meanwhile, somewhere else in the worl)
wow, we have a link on slashdot!
QUICK, WHO WANTS TO ROAST SOME MARSHMALLOWS!
Linux: Helping nerds look smarter since the late 90s.
Hmm, and with a StarLAN to 10baseT router, I could get the resulting beastie on the net. Hmm....
who's first thought was to try and install this OS on a 3gz system with like a gig of ram?
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
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 ;)...
Bear in mind the first web servers in the early days of the web were probably running on something of a similar CPU power to a 386.
I've got a mint condition ZX80 that I want to run a webserver on. Man, all my hopes and dreams dashed to hell.
Oh well, the CoCo will handle it though, all is not lost!
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 have an old pre-386 machine around, why not run Minix? That should make a far more useful machine.
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.
Silicone is for making tits bigger and keeping water in the tub.
Silicon is what chips are made of.
Haven't we abused this poor machine enough. Just several weeks ago it was the victim of a slashdotting. Now once again the moderators seek to wipe it's presence from the net.
Silly embeded computer, web serving is for servers.
Whoever said this has to do with old computers?! How about getting this running on a PIC? Having a wristwatch (a SMALL one!) or a grad ring act as a web server or some real functional computer would be really cool.
It's a 386 compatible CPU featuring pipelined execution and an onboard FPU. Pretty neat, huh? Those puppies can be pushed to speeds in excess of 100MHz.
This is just vague memory thou....
What i do know is that the tiki 100 was popular in norwegian schools in the 80s....
So if it'll run on a C64, will it run on a 1541 disk drive? A GUI would obviously be out, but the processor is essentially the same as the C64 (6502 vs 6510), and it would be amusing to have a web server running on a floppy drive.
MAN! Everybody's suing these days. Old ladies who pour scalding coffee on their crotches, smokers, gun nuts, now DEAD anthropologists? Where will the madness end?
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.
It shows that you can make a simple OS with minimal space. That does not mean that one could do the same of Windows (please, it just looks immature to name call) or Linux. They have far more features, and make far less assumptions, the this OS.
A big one would be preemptive multitasking. All modren OSes have it, Contiki does not. Why not? To quote them "The reason for not supporting pre-emptive multitasking is that it would unnecessarily increase the complexity not only of the operating system, but also of the applications that would run under it." Ahh, so it would make things more complex (and also larger and less efficient) to use PMT. Ok, fine, but CMT makes the assumption that all the apps running are going to be well behaved, will not use more than their fair share of time, there will be no critical evens that need to interrupt them, and that an app won't hang and take the system down with it. Fine, but for your standard desktop or server, that's not a valid assumption.
Or how about features like 3d graphics? I want to be able to use a 3d accelerator. Oooo, well now here's a whole different can of worms. All the 3d accelerators speak a different language, so we need to implement a common apstraction layer, like OpenGL. Then we need to have drivers to interface with that. Here we are talking tons more complexity and size, and much larger programs to boot. This is not even to mention the many other features most OSes have that it does not.
See you can do a lot of huge optimization on a general purpose design by making assumptions and optimizing for it. Like a memory manager. Linux, Windows, etc all have fairly complex memory managers these days. It virtualizes memory for programs and juggles the actual RAM, it changes allocation in real time and protects programs from interfering with each other or the system. However, that wastes space and CPU cycles. It would be much more efficient to assume that all programs are going to play nice and know how much RAM they need. Then when a progam starts, it tells the OS what it wants, and the OS tells it what range of memory it may use. It is then up to the program to keep within its borders. MacOS actually used to use a system much like this. Efficient? Yes, however many problems. The fact aside that a program might want more memory later, this is a huge stability and security hole. Any program can bring down the whole system by accidently writing to system memory, but mroe scary is the security implication. All you have to do is get a service, ANY service on the system to execute code for you and you are in will full permissions.
So there are plenty of things that mainstream OSes provide that a tiny OS like contiki cannot and willnot provide. This is not to bag on their accomplishment, it is a really cool OS and does get a lot out of old hardware. However do not assume that because they can make a simple CMT OS that runs a basic webserver on old hardware they could make an OS as powerful as a full featured Linux or Windows system fit in a couple MB. Not happening.
Do you really need Contiki to surf with an old X86? An 8086-based PC could be used to dial into a shell account, where you could use Lynx, telnet, and so on. College computer labs of the early and mid-1990s were filled with 286 and 386-based PCs, 68XXX-based Macs, and Sun Sparcstations, equipped with Mosaic and capable of surfing at decent speeds.
I completely agree! When I started realizing how many different platforms he has this OS running on, it hit me that this might finally allow cross-platform compatibility on all of these classic 8-bit systems that always wished for it, and never got it in their heyday.
In a strange way, it's almost like completing unfinished business from the 80's!
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.
The 386 had no hardware floating-point. For that you needed an 80387 coprocessor (c.f. 80287, 8087). The "sx" in 386sx denoted "single word exchange" and dx "double word exchange". The 386sx had a 16-bit bus, so that it could be used in cheaper motherboards (basically 286 motherboards) and the original 386, later renamed the 386dx had a 32-bit bus. The original 486 was, like someone already said, an optimised 386 core (better pipelining, introduction of an 8k L1 cache, some instructions optimised for single clock-cycle execution etc.) with a built-in optimized 387. The result was a proecssor that was about twice as fast as the saame 386/387 combination at the same clock frequency. The 486sx was a marketing exercise to use up 486 cores with broken FPUs. The 487 "coprocessor" for these machines was really just a proper 486 with an extra pin which disabled the 486sx already installed. You could actually buld a PC with only a 487 using certain motherboards if you knew what you were doing.
Stick Men
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?