The NetBSD Toaster

kv9 writes "Finally after many, many yeas of running on everything-but-your-toaster NetBSD is there too. Technologic Systems has made a toaster that is controlled by NetBSD and powered by one of their ARM boards, the TS-7200. Everything is controlled through sysctl, there are LEDs that show you what is going on, the toaster can play MP3s while it fries the bread and even has Apache/PHP installed. More information in the press release [pdf warning] and on this running NetBSD on the TS-7200 page."

Comments

Can it burn CDs?

[Se7enLC]

Can it burn CDs^W^W^W toast?

Re:Can it burn CDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ^H per character. "Can it burn CDs^H^H^H toast?"

Re:Can it burn CDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, ^W erases a word, ^H a character, and ^U a line. Thus, your comment reads: Can toast?

Well... can it?!

Re:Can it burn CDs?

[NemosomeN]

Can toast?
No, toast can't run BSD.

Re:Can it burn CDs?

[WillAffleckUW]

Can it burn CDs^W^W^W toast?

Only if they have DRM imposed on them.

Or with marmelade.

But it prefers DVDs. It's a new toaster.

Re:Can it burn CDs?

[WillAffleckUW]

No, toast can't run BSD.

It's not that it can't.

It's just that it won't.

Even if you give it jam.

Re:Can it burn CDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck yes. An 800 watt heater element can burn just about anything, including CD's. However, I hear not much data is stored on the burned CD. Basically, just 1 bit. (burned/not burned)

Re:Can it burn CDs?

[It'sYerMam]

"I hate grammar Nazi's."

And then you bash on someone's vi grammar? Jeez!

By the way, it's "Nazis" ;)

Re:Can it burn CDs?

[NemosomeN]

vi grammar? Maybe "syntax" is a better choice. And I know, it was intentional. Congratulations on being trolled by someone who wasn't really trying.

Ah, but...

[Winckle]

does it run Mac OS X? It should do, according to all the mad rumours ^H^H^H^H^H^H /. news stories we've been having lately.

Yeah, but...

[Ledneh]

I'll bet it makes lousy toast. You know, the kind with BCBs all over the place.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Ledneh]

Sorry, for the interested, that's "Burnt Crunchy Bits." From Terry Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant.

Re:Yeah, but...

[iamdrscience]

I'll bet it makes lousy toast. You know, the kind with BCBs all over the place.

Before someone replies to the parent saying that he spelled PCB wrong, he didn't. He was talking about BCBs, "Blackened/Burnt Circuit Boards", an obvious result from putting a computer in a toaster.

BCBs can also result from using special components such as LERs (Light Emitting Resistors) and SEDs (Smoke Emitting Diodes).

Re:Yeah, but...

[Ledneh]

Actually, if I wanted to say that the toast would have PCB's all over it, I'd ask someone to shoot me first and end my suffering before I could spread it around. No, no typo there at all--see sibling comment.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

But wait, there's more!

Call in the next 10 minutes and get the George Foreman firewire burger grilling attachment absolutely free! Imagine enjoying a low-fat grilled burger on a toasted bun while you're downloading pr0n...

Re:Yeah, but...

[SA Stevens]

It's much more interesting to produce the Light Emitting EPROM (LEE) though.

Re:Yeah, but...

[wf_john]

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. What do you think this is?" he asked. One advisor, an engineer, answered first. "It is a toaster," he said. The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer for it?" The engineer replied, "Using a 4-bit microcontroller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from white to black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16 element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. By next week, I can show you a working prototype." The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand morecapabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years." "With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage, links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelet classes." "The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast than to scrambled eggs." "Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too." "We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message 'Booting UNIX v. 8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook." "Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. A 1 GHz Intel Pentium IV with 256 MB of memory, a 6 GB hard disk, and a Flat Panel monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multi-tasking, object-oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap. Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a 4-bit microcontroller!" The king wisely had the computer scientist beheaded, and they all lived happily ever after.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook yourself.'

Welcome to modern "object oriented" programming.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The original version had "an Intel 80386 with 8MB of memory, a 30MB hard disk, and a VGA monitor".

And Unix 8.3 will have to wait until the SCO v. IBM lawsuit is done, in either case =)

Re:Yeah, but...

[PhoenixPath]

And once upon a time people would read a piece of work and accept it as it is without bitching and whining about every grammatical detail. Arsehole.

Already Dead

[HFShadow]

0 comments and already dead.

Mirrordot hasn't got it either :(

Re:Already Dead

[leonardluen]

"...it fries the bread and even has Apache/PHP installed."

that will teach them to run their webserver on a toaster!

Re:Already Dead

[HardCase]

What happens if they install NetBSD on the kitchen sink?

Re:Already Dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no! there toast is probably burnt too!

Re:Already Dead

[Anonymous Coward]

It will go down the drain ... oops, it already has.

Re:Already Dead

[kv9]

TFA salvaged from MoFos cache:

It has long been regarded that the UNIX-like OS NetBSD is portable to every type of machine except perhaps your kitchen toaster. Technologic Systems, however, has conquered this last frontier. Using one of its rugged embedded TS-7200 single-board computers housed inside the empty space of a standard 2 slice toaster, Technologic Systems has designed a functional NetBSD controlled toaster.

The toaster on display now in the NetBSD booth at the LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco, is as high-tech as they come. This toaster features a 4 line LCD, USB keyboard, 10/100 ethernet port and a RS232 serial port for the external console. The toaster's internal circuit boards have been bypassed and routed through the CPU board allowing NetBSD complete control over the toaster's features. A keyboard connects through a USB port on the side of the toaster and the 4x40 LCD displays a NetBSD/toaster login prompt. The burner element is also controlled by the TS-7200 via an internal relay. Unlike previous NetBSD toasters which were nothing more than a glorified PC case-mod, this toaster can actually toast bread!

NetBSD was ported to the toaster by Jesse Off (an engineer at Technologic Systems). When asked details about the week-long effort, he replied, "NetBSD is well laid out for this type of embedded application development. I was most worried about physical things such as fitting the hardware inside the case and the board being able to survive 60 seconds at a time a half centimeter away from an 800 watt burner element. A regular PC can't even survive room temperature without heatsinks and fans, and the TS-7200 has neither." The end-design has no thermal issues and will not let the user toast if things start getting close to the temperature margins of the internal components measured by the onboard temperature sensor.

When asked what he thinks of the NetBSD operating system, Off replied, "Well, I'm skewed. I have been a small-time NetBSD developer on and off the last 4 years. NetBSD's single no-frills high quality source tree is a great starting point for bringing up an embedded application. The API's have a great power-to-complexity ratio and are coded with great wisdom as well as great intellect. For NetBSD though, being wiser is definitely the greater virtue."

When asked what the point of this exercise was, company president Bob Miller chuckled and had this to say: "Well, we're definitely not planning on going into full production with this. The idea was to follow through on a process most of our customers are using everyday in their own embedded designs using our boards. Though customers are not likely using toasters in their designs, they are likely encountering many of of the same issues such as GPIO control of hardware, custom software design/modification and dealing with tight spaces and high temperatures."

So what exactly is inside this toaster for a computer to read/control? For one, there is a small magnetic latch that holds your toast down against the spring action after you press down. To engage that latch, one needs to know when the user is pressing the bread into the toaster which the TS-7200 reads with another sensor. There is a browning level knob (a potentiometer) which the TS-7200 reads with an analog converter input. The front panel also contains 4 bright red LEDs and 5 push-buttons which appear to the system as a 5-key keyboard. The NetBSD LCD driver presents a standard VT100 text mode console that both the USB keyboard and 5-key front-panel are connected.

All peripherals had NetBSD drivers w

Re:Already Dead

[Scarblac]

In fact, that's how it works. Insert bread, start webserver, advertize its existence on Slashdot. Resulting meltdown turns bread into toast.

Re:Already Dead

[timonak]

Actually, according to Jessie Off (or was it Eddie Dawydiuk) from Technologic Systems, there website does indeed run on a TS-7200. Which works quiet well to serve there site, except when the slashdot hoards hit.

I'm glad I viewed the write up last night. . .

Re:Already Dead

[asdfgl]

I thought you knew, BSD is not only dying, it's dead.

Re:Already Dead

[hotdiggitydawg]

I must sat, when I read the headline "The NetBSD Toaster" I thought that someone had finally got around to cremating it...

*ducks

Re:Already Dead

[mikiN]

In other news, a house fire that initially looked just ordinary made it onto the front page after forensic detectives found out that it was caused by a slashdotted toaster.

Re:Already Dead

[mikiN]

Kitchen sink: "drain: fatal IO error 9 (Broken pipe)"
John Doe: "Well, gotta have it fixed. Lets call the plumber..."

Personally, I need a toaster with rails

[Anonymous Coward]

PHP is ok, I guess, but I really need a toaster with rails.

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

now ... control my can opener!

Re:wow

[noamsml]

garfield? is that you?

w00

[Anonymous Coward]

yay

So...

[Knight Thrasher]

If it crashes, does your toast get burnt?

The BTOD? Black Toast of Death?

Re:So...

[cvk]

Yes, actually! I'm Christian von Kleist and I'm with The NetBSD Foundation, manning the booth at LinuxWorld SF '05 and operating our sweet, sweet toaster demo. The script that does the toasting is /usr/local/bin/toast (seriously). Scripts interface with the toaster device drivers (the burner relay, the buttons, the LED bank, the toastiness knob, and the relay that turns on the latch electromagnet) through sysctl.

Pictures I took: http://wickedways.org/articles/linuxworld2005/

Here's what's available to a script from sysctl:

# sysctl -a | grep hw.t
hw.toaster0.led0_duty = 1 hw.toaster0.led0_width = 8
hw.toaster0.led1_duty = 2 hw.toaster0.led1_width = 16
hw.toaster0.led2_duty = 4 hw.toaster0.led2_width = 32
hw.toaster0.led3_duty = 8 hw.toaster0.led3_width = 64
hw.toaster0.magnetic_latch = 0 hw.toaster0.burner_element = 0
hw.toastersensors0.burnlevel_knob = 1593 hw.toastersensors0.cancel_key = 0 hw.toastersensors0.cancel_key_ticks = 13 hw.toastersensors0.toast_key = 0
hw.toastersensors0.toast_key_ticks = 4 hw.toastersensors0.bagel_key = 0
hw.toastersensors0.bagel_key_ticks = 6
hw.toastersensors0.warm_key = 0 hw.toastersensors0.warm_key_ticks = 7 hw.toastersensors0.frozen_key = 0 hw.toastersensors0.frozen_key_ticks = 10 hw.toastersensors0.toast_down = 0 hw.toastersensors0.toast_down_ticks = 50965 hw.tspld0.board_temp = 40250000 hw.tspld0.board_temp_5s = 40290128
hw.tspld0.board_temp_30s = 40477805

(The board_temp are the temperature in C, multiplied by 10^6, so right now it's at 40.25 degrees C.) /usr/local/bin/toast is pretty complicated, but a basic toast script works like this:

#! /bin/sh
sysctl -w hw.toaster0.magnetic_latch=1
# user presses toast lever down now...
sysctl -w hw.toaster0.burner_element = 1
sleep 60
sysctl -w hw.toaster0.burner_element = 0
sysctl -w hw.toaster0.magnetic_latch=0
echo "Toast is done!"

Only root has write access to hw.toaster0.burner_element! :D

The real script uses trap to prevent the sleep line from being interrupted, since that could result in a fire!

Just FYI:
# dmesg
NetBSD 3.0_BETA (TS7200) #57: Mon Aug 8 00:34:41 MST 2005
joff@sayan.wifi.home:/home/joff/NetBSD-toaster/obj /sys/arch/evbarm/compi
le/TS7200
total memory = 32768 KB
avail memory = 28196 KB
mainbus0 (root)
cpu0 at mainbus0: ARM920T rev 0 (ARM9TDMI core)
cpu0: DC enabled IC enabled WB enabled EABT
cpu0: 16KB/32B 64-way Instruction cache
cpu0: 16KB/32B 64-way write-back-locking-A Data cache
epsoc0 at mainbus0: Cirrus Logic EP93xx SoC rev E0
epsoc0: fclk 200.03 Mhz hclk 100.01 Mhz pclk 50.01 Mhz
ohci0 at epsoc0 addr 0x80020000-0x80020fff intr 56
epclk0 at epsoc0 addr 0x80810000-0x8081008f intr 35
epe0 at epsoc0 addr 0x80010000-0x8001ffff intr 39
epe0: MAC address 00:d0:69:4f:af:76
ukphy0 at epe0 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface
ukphy0: OUI 0x0010a1, model 0x0021, rev. 9
ukphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
epcom0 at epsoc0 addr 0x808c0000-0x808c0fff intr 52
epcom1 at epsoc0 addr 0x808d0000-0x808d0fff intr 54
epcom1: console
ohci0: OHCI version 1.0
usb0 at ohci0: USB revision 1.0
uhub0 at usb0
uhub0: Cirrus Logic OHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1
uhub0: 3 ports with 3 removable, self powered
tspld0 at mainbus0: Technologic Systems TS-7200 rev C, features 0x1
tspld0: jumpers 0x7
tspld0: board temperature 21.93 degC (71.48 degF)
isa0 at tspld0: PC/104 expansion bus
tsdio0 at isa0 port 0x100-0x107: Technologic Systems TS-DIO24
toasterlcd0 at tsdio0: 4x40 text-mode hd44780 LCD
toasterlcd0: using port C, bits 0-7 as DB0-DB7
toasterlcd0: using port B, bits 0-3 as RS, WR, EN1, EN2
wsdisplay0 at toasterlcd0 kbdmux 1
wsmux1: connecting to wsdisplay0
toaster0 at ts

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

is this a joke? mod parent funny!

Re:So...

[doffles]

/toast is /.ed ?

Re:So...

[Just Some Guy]

..and it's sitting on top of an Amiga 2000. I love you guys, seriously - viva la NetBSD!

Re:So...

[plover]

Even funnier when you consider that "TOD" is German for "DEATH"!

Trademark infringement?

[Anonymous Coward]

will Roxios Toast sue wonderbread for trademark infrigement now?

Great!

[Knome_fan]

This is one of the funniest projects I've seen in a long time.

I know that people were sayint that NetBSD runs on everything but your toaster, but that they would actually take the time to prove those naysayers wrong. Great.

Btw., I want one of those.

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some clever coding, some AI voodoo, some creative hardware hiding coupled with one of the girls from ,a href="http://wwww.realdoll.com/">Real Doll would be mighty interesting.

With a programmable ho, I could successfully watch an entire season of Stargate in one sitting with no complaints. :)

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

What?! R U on a #|?

You want to toasti-fry your weiner in a real doll?

WTF! Hard core or what!

Server

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess their server is toast.

Server will be toast

[wackysootroom]

I hope the server's running NetBSD because it's gonna be toast too!

Re:Server will be toast

[The Finn]

Jesse Off wrote in a post to netbsd-advocacy:

FWIW, our website is being served up using the same board as in the toaster. Apache is configured for 30 simultaneous connections (which all are full) and the load average is 0.3 and the system remains very responsive via ssh. As we had suspected, we're limited 100% by bandwidth and not by NetBSD or the TS-7200 board.

now to get NetBSD/coffeemaker going. I knew that MRKRUPS kernel config was there for a reason...

Wait, this story confuses me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a little confused by this story.

Did Netcraft just confirm that my toaster is dead?

sweet

[switchfutguy]

SWEET!! where can I buy one??

Talkie Toaster ( red dwarf reference )

[Phil246]

How long before we get a proper talkie toaster then
like this :)

Re:Talkie Toaster ( red dwarf reference )

[JamesTRexx]

But will it do crumpets too?

Re:Talkie Toaster ( red dwarf reference )

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on the executables installed in /usr/bun

Re:Talkie Toaster ( red dwarf reference )

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more of a waffles kind of guy

wear this

[Anonymous Coward]

goatse.cx hardware!! w00t!!

Fries the bread?

[jo7hs2]

Where can I get one of these magical deep-frying toasters?

It's Instant

[srosebush]

He's dead Jim.

I don't think so....

[jericho4.0]

This might be appropriate for a single guy on a budget, but we all know that scaling problems will keep this from being deployed in any serious environment.

Re:I don't think so....

[dr_dank]

If you had a beowulf cluster of these, you could toast a whole loaf at once!

Re:I don't think so....

[joeybagadonuts]

Yea, bet it throws off a little more heat than a P4

Re:I don't think so....

[Z0mb1eman]

The fact that this is currently +4 Insightful is one of the funniest things I've seen on Slashdot in a while.

Cheers, mods :)

Re:I don't think so....

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you too stupid to know the Time Cube [timecube.com]? Dumbass!

You are an idiot.

Re:I don't think so....

[mobby_6kl]

But only if it could be sliced up into many regular-sized pieces, otherwise what you need is a supertoaster.

Re:I don't think so....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sliced bread you say? It's crazy but it just might work.

I'm taking out the patent, any claims of priorart will be met with derisive laughter.

Re:I don't think so....

[bhtooefr]

800w toaster element + whatever the CPU uses (probably 1w)

vs.

~130W for a Pentium D...

Re:I don't think so....

[Not_Wiggins]

If you had a beowulf cluster of these, you could toast a whole loaf at once!

Actually, if you put a beowulf cluster of these in an unventilated closet, you wouldn't even need the "toaster part" to make toast!

Re:Oh man, a toaster?!

[Chosen Reject]

This guy already found a way to watch ESPN in peace

toasted cheese in that server (er... toaster)

[phorest]

Apparently the /. crowd wanted toasted cheese because that server is toast!

Myth

[keesh]

It's a myth that NetBSD runs on more than Linux. See gregkh's writeup.

Re:Myth

[nacturation]

From the writeup:

"Comparing that list to the list of NetBSD ports it is now evident that Linux has been ported to more platforms than NetBSD.

[...]

Which just goes to show how flexible Linux is..."

Um, no it doesn't go to show that there are more ports because of its flexibility. No doubt Linux is flexible, but so is NetBSD (some have argued more so). The reason that Linux has more ports is because there are more people doing porting.

Re:Myth

[leoboiko]

Nowhere in the official page NetBSD is compared to Linux.

Also, NetBSD people don't claim it is more ported than Linux, they claim it's more portable, and that's true. If you want to port NetBSD to a new system, it's much simpler than porting Linux (due to the carefully engineered, well-documented kernel source and porting procedures).

Re:Myth

[Just Some Guy]

They both list quite a few ports, but the trick is in deciding which list is actually longer. If you count complete hardware platforms, then it looks like NetBSD might take the lead since, in my opinion, just booting the Linux kernel doesn't really qualify as "running Linux". That's a point that has to be decided, though. On the other hand, if you count CPU architectures instead, then Linux might be ahead. That depends on how loosely you aggregate similar chips - for example, is "Intel IA32-compatibles (Cyrix MediaGX, STMicroelectronics STPC, ZF Micro ZFx86)", listed under "Diverse PDA / embedded / microcontroller / router devices", really different than "Intel IA32 family"?

My point is that it's not entirely clear which OS supports more platforms, since "supports" and "platforms" are both variables that would need to be nailed down before the conversation even begins. My own first impression is that NetBSD is still the winner, since you can actually boot into each of its listed platforms, install software from pkgsrc, and generally treat them as equals except for the obvious performance differences. Others could effectively argue the opposite, I'm sure.

Re:Myth

[nathanh]

Which just goes to show how flexible Linux is..."

Um, no it doesn't go to show that there are more ports because of its flexibility. No doubt Linux is flexible, but so is NetBSD (some have argued more so). The reason that Linux has more ports is because there are more people doing porting.

Well if you're going to be pedantic, flexible refers to how far you can bend something without breaking it. It is irrelevant how much force is required to bend the material. For example, iron is more flexible than dried spaghetti, even though it requires a considerably greater force to bend iron.

So it's irrelevant how many people are coding the ports (aka force). It matters how far you can bend (aka port) the software before it breaks.

Re:Myth

[SA Stevens]

'The software' where Linux is concerned is just the kernel. Then the 'distro maker' throws in whatever subset of a userland s/he feels like including.

NetBSD ports all build out of a single source tree. That includes the kernel AND the base userland. So the structure of your /etc/ directory can be nearly identical, for your Sparc, your i386 boxes, your Macintosh SE/30, your StrongARM box, your SGI MIPS box, your Mac PowerPC box, etc. etc. And they all run code built from the same CVS tree or source tarballs.

Linux by comparison is a hodge-podge.

Re:Myth

[nathanh]

'The software' where Linux is concerned is just the kernel.

NetBSD ports all build out of a single source tree.

Well duh. Look at the userid, newbie. You think this is something I don't know?

Re:Myth

[SA Stevens]

Nobody cares that a few years ago Slashdot decided to start listing user ID numbers right up on top, like a weenie BBS full of 15 year olds back in the day where 'rankings' determined your standing.

I think there's probably a hell of a lot that you don't know. Just as with the rest of us.

I'd be embarassed to admit that I'm such a suckup to the Slashdot Cult that I haven't quit in disgust and thrown away a whole handful of accounts. Almost all of which had high positive karma before I changed the email address to a nonentity, changed the password, and kissed Slashdot goodbye for a few months.

Do you know anything about NetBSD or have you just been reading trolls about NetBSD since way back in the 'Mae Ling Mak, Naked and Petrified' days when the Kreskin link still worked in the "BSD is Dead" crapfloods?

Don't be a dink with an attitude.

Re:Myth

[sp0rk173]

Yes, but without the force required to bend iron, it stays unbent (unported). Your analogy says nothing for the flexibility of NetBSD compared to the flexibility of Linux. It does, however, imply that it takes far more resources to bend Linux than it does to bend NetBSD. That's All.

Glad you drink lots of coolaid.

Re:Myth

[nathanh]

Yes, but without the force required to bend iron, it stays unbent (unported). Your analogy says nothing for the flexibility of NetBSD compared to the flexibility of Linux.

I intentionally said nothing about NetBSD vs Linux, because I'm not stupid enough to get involved in that pointless flamewar.

Re:Myth

[nathanh]

Nobody cares that a few years ago Slashdot decided to start listing user ID numbers right up on top, like a weenie BBS full of 15 year olds back in the day where 'rankings' determined your standing.

Way to miss the point, newbie. The low userid shows that I've been using computers long enough to know that Linux is just a kernel. Your lecture was worthless.

I'd be embarassed to admit that I'm such a suckup to the Slashdot Cult that I haven't quit in disgust and thrown away a whole handful of accounts. Almost all of which had high positive karma before I changed the email address to a nonentity, changed the password, and kissed Slashdot goodbye for a few months.

Oh yeah, you're way too cool for Slashdot.

/laugh

Don't be a dink with an attitude.

You're aware that dink means "Dual Income No Kids"? You're such a buffoon.

Re:Myth

[sp0rk173]

What a newb.

Re:Myth

[LizardKing]

It's a myth that NetBSD runs on more than Linux.

Bullshit. Linux fanboys claim that their kernel runs on an architecture when it boots single user on one machine. Then the patches don't make it into the vanilla Linus kernel tree, and the porters lose interest. For example, check out the various MIPS, Vax and m68k ports - all stagnant. Even more "mainstream" architectures like Sparc are regularily broken in Linus sanctioned releases. On the distribution front, I've had Debian fail to install time and time agaon in non-x86 architectures. NetBSD by comparison is an *entire* operating system (not just a kernel) that is auto-built on all supported architectures on an almot daily basis, from a single source tree.

Re:Myth

[nacturation]

Well if you're going to be pedantic, flexible refers to how far you can bend something without breaking it.

To be really pedantic, comparing operating systems to iron and spaghetti is quite the stretch. Flexible also means "ability to change", which is much more relevant to software without having to combine metallurgy with one's culinary skills.

So it's irrelevant how many people are coding the ports (aka force). It matters how far you can bend (aka port) the software before it breaks.

Given that porting involves working to fix where it is broken -- not port a working OS until it breaks -- I think your analogy is wrong. More resources means more things get done. Granted, a software's portability is affected by its design, but 1000 people working on a moderately portable piece of software can port it to more environments than 1 person working on highly portable software.

Re:Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

NetBSD is the OPERATING SYSTEM put out by the NetBSD foundation.

Linux is the kernel put out by Linus Torvalis.

Once someone else starts patching that released version it stops being "Linux" and becomes a fork.

So there may be many forks of "Linux" that run on various hardware, but "Linux" itself is a limited kernel, not an Operating System like NetBSD

"The UNIX T SERVER!!!"

[Camon_Draconis]

"Shh shh shh, not right now son. Im making *PZZZTTT* toast!!!!"

Re:Oh man, a toaster?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see it now. Woman sues dildo manufacturer for consistent malloc just seconds before orgasm.

It may be a Toaster

[Nom du Keyboard]

It may be a toaster,
But is it a video toaster?

Re:It may be a Toaster

[kv9]

But is it a video toaster?

as a matter of fact, it is. it has a lil lcd on the side, where you could play some nice pixel animations.

Warning?

[HardCase]

[pdf warning]

Huh?

Re:Warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

The damn pdf plugins take a freakin half hour to load.

I for one appreciate the warning very much.

Re:Warning?

[op12]

Moving the plugins into the optional folder creates dramatic speedup in start time. See here

Re:Warning?

[Brandybuck]

Use KPDF then. Sheesh.

Re:Warning?

[rcbarnes]

Why stop there? Viva La XPDF!

Re:Warning?

[bhtooefr]

Using Foxit Reader instead of Adobe Reader also creates a dramatic speedup in start time. :P

second slice of toast

[Phroggy]

What I want to know is, if I finish toasting one slice of bread, and then immediately decide I want to toast another, will it reset and toast the second slice for the correct amount of time, instead of popping up way too early like most toasters do? Of course it would have to take into account that the toaster is already hot, and not toast it for quite as long as the first slice (since it would have taken a little time to warm up at first).

Re:second slice of toast

[PakProtector]

Since my roommate, who was at LinuxWorld with the NetBSD team, and actually got to use the Toaster and run the Toaster Demos, got back a little under 4 hours ago, I can answer your question.

The Toast will always cook for the correct time. The mechanism that 'drops' the basket the toast is in is held there by sleep, not by a monitor of the temperature of basket, or by some flimsy piece two metals sandwiched together that heat at different rates.

It is a fine device.

Re:second slice of toast

[Phroggy]

Presumably this could result in the first slice of toast being slightly lighter than subsequent slices, if the toaster has to warm up to toast the first time, but is already hot for subsequent toastings?

Re:second slice of toast

[PakProtector]

That could very well be, but it would be easy to configure it to check to see what the current temperature of the heating element is, and if it's not been used recently, to hold the toast a bit longer. And if it has been used recently and is already hot, to hold it for a different time to make the slices as similar as possible.

Now all we need is...

[Norfair]

... a Genesis emulator so we can play Mortal Kombat 2 on it :)

Yes, but

[zbuffered]

Does it play Doom?

Great, but...

[mrchaotica]

...now they need to get it running on the kitchen sink!

Re:Obligatory

[muellerr1]

Don't forget what the Beowulf cluster of these things could do. A whole loaf at once!

Usenet?

[Anonymous Coward]

My god.. When the Usenet folks complained back in the good old days that NetBSD was good enough to install on a Toaster, they didn't mean it .

Sad State of Affairs

[ndansmith]

Dozens of comments, still only trolls . . .

My two cents: Call me when they get it running on the kitchen sink!

Re:Oh man, a toaster?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Woman sues dildo manufacturer for consistent malloc just seconds before orgasm.

I can't believe I'm asking this - but why would a dildo need to malloc seconds before orgasm?

Move along...

[Anonymous Coward]

...nothing here but really bad toast jokes.

Here's a good non BSD toaster..

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.eggandmuffintoaster.com/

on the scale of Nerds <----> Matters

[bugnuts]

News for Nerds <--------> Stuff that Matters

I'd put this solidly on the "Nerds" side.

Red Dwarf nostalgia

[urikkiru]

'Hi, would you like some toast?'

Re:Red Dwarf nostalgia

[iggymanz]

I for one welcome our new NetBSD running Talkie Toaster Overlords and the Old Koreans who made them

Re:Red Dwarf nostalgia

[Destoo]

LISTER: Look, _I_ don't want any toast, and _he_ (indicating KRYTEN) doesn't want any toast. In fact, no one around here wants any toast.
Not now, not ever. NO TOAST.

TOASTER: How 'bout a muffin?

LISTER: OR muffins! OR muffins!
We don't LIKE muffins around here!
We want no muffins, no toast, no teacakes, no buns, baps, baguettes or bagels, no croissants, no crumpets, no pancakes, no potato cakes and no hot-cross buns and DEFINITELY no smegging flapjacks! .(slight pause)
.
.
.
TOASTER: Aah, so you're a waffle man!

Slashdotted already - toaset or toaster oven?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if it is a toaster oven that can have its temperature profile programmed then I'll buy it - it'll be great for surface mount soldering.

Nitpick - you don't fry bread in a toaster.

Put Video out to oven lights ;)

[myXtie]

Hey if it burns and butters my toast thats great. And I thought G-4 Cube was the original toaster. It looks like the inside of my cube.

As always

[iamdrscience]

This just proves how ahead of its time Amiga was. The Video Toaster came out in 1990. Now, 15 years later, someone finally puts another system on a toaster and it doesn't even have video! Maybe another 15 and the world will catch up.

Re:As always

[Raypeso]

Damnit, I looked that up. http://www.newtek.com/vt/ I am such a sucker.

Two types of toast.

[MiddleHitter]

The bread toaster is a server. /. toasts servers.
Therefore /. toasts bread?

Re:Two types of toast.

[confused.brit]

I dunno. Someone hook it up to the net and provide the ip... :D

2005 is...

[crimson_alligator]

...the year of BSD on the countertop!

But...

[Hugues999]

But will your toasts survive kernel panics?

Re:But...

[hobbesx]

But will your toasts survive kernel panics?

And if it's toasting a bagel, do you get a core dump?

Re:But...

[Locke2005]

Kernel panics are caused by putting popcorn in the toaster...

Obligatory qdb toast quote

[Call Me Black Cloud]

And here it is!

If only...

[MiddleHitter]

Now, if only NetBSD ran a garbage-disposal, we could say that NetBSD runs everything and the kitchen sink!

Re:If only...

[dodobh]

It runs Emacs.

It slices, it dices...

[the_sidewinder]

It toasts, it plays mp3s and for a limited time only... you too can use this toaster to host your very own web page! see how your bread is toasting for your office, or even on the onther end of the planet! Next week: the Linux controlled kitchen sink!

meh

[slorge]

meh...

didn't rtfa

only impressed if it uses the CPU heat to toast, otherwise....meh

Re:meh

[B11]

I think the AMD-powered toasters actually do use CPU heat to toast the bread.

Intellitoast

[carambola5]

Finally! My dreams have come true!

The World Needs More Toast Tech

[bloodmusic]

I'd like to see this extended to a combined toaster/jelly-jet printer. Delicious toast printed to order with the image of your choice. Of course it would require a bread feeder that could do cut slice or continuous loaf.

Re:The World Needs More Toast Tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Who modded this Interesting? Come on!

Re:The World Needs More Toast Tech

[mcrbids]

Who modded this Interesting? Come on!

Probably some sod (like me) who thought the idea of a toaster that squirts on some Butter/Jelly interesting. But, before I'd buy one, I'd have to make sure that Blackberry Jelly cartridges are cheaply available...

Here's a hint: It's a toaster! This isn't serious business!

Re:The World Needs More Toast Tech

[pklinken]

Yea, so you can print a picture of the virgin Mary on your toast and make a fortune on e-bay!

Re:The World Needs More Toast Tech

[sanx]

But if HP were producing it, you'd be forced to buy jelly at $100 an ounce...

Dave Lister had one 3 million years from now

[davidwr]

Th is one talked.

One challenge still remains...

[Anonymous Coward]

does it run on a potato ?

Cause, hum, you know... linux does...

The obligatory question

[HishamMuhammad]

But... do they fly?

Re:The obligatory question

[op12]

This isn't Windows!

Re:The obligatory question

[zjbs14]

Yes, but Flying Toasters was a Mac-only thing long before it was a Windows thing. Also, written by Berkeley Systems. Coincidence?

Re:The obligatory question

[WWWWolf]

Absolutely! And thanks to the wondrous advances in technology, these days, they're jet-powered and able to bomb people with toasts!

Re:on the scale of Nerds Matters

[op12]

Unsurprisingly, that scale covers all possible topics of conversation (not just Slashdot topics)

Now this is cool :)

[Nonillion]

Maybe Thinkgeek could sell these :) I would purchase one just for grins. Now how about a BSD powered fridge, stove, microwave, coffee maker and dishwasher...

Re:Now this is cool :)

[DongleFondle]

You have way to much fucking money.

Fries the bread?

[Peyna]

I sure hope you don't fry your bread in the toaster. Where do you put the oil or fat to fry it in?

Toasters heat bread. You might consider it baking, but it's definitely not frying.

Finaly

[bart416]

Now i need to overclock this toaster. all your base are belong to NetBSD Toaster I wonder how fast it boots, i don't want to wait long to start toasting.

already /.ed

[stefankoegl]

maybe the site is hosted on the toaster.

the old joke about a king wanting a toaster

[Anonymous Coward]

this is the first thing I was reminded of: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/90q2/toaster.htm l/

I dont need that

[nxcho]

I toast my bread on my powerbook G4. (With the power of OS X)

Re:Oh man, a toaster?!

[saintp]

But does that claw hammer run BSD?

Re:Oh man, a toaster?!

[Anonymous Coward]

"why would a dildo need to malloc seconds before orgasm?"

The same reason your blowup doll needs to be compiled with hardenend gcc... um, uh, to somehow irreverently tie sex and geekdom together?

Typo in NetBSD's webpage...

[testednegative]

Welcome to The NetBSD Project
``Of course it runs NetBSD.''

the correct would be

Welcome to The NetBSD Project
``Of course it ran NetBSD.''

mirrordot to the rescue:
http://ww.mirrordot.org/stories/e2f5f6c79a9c89f05e 6785295f98895e/index.html

Kiddie says...

[dal20402]

0mG \|\|tF 1 \/|/111 h4xX0r j00r t04x73|2!@#!@!!11 411 j00|2 7o@$t |' b33|0|\|6 t0o u$!@#!#@!!11thirty-two

Poor CPU choice

[ingo23]

I do not think you can do a good toast on an ARM CPU. You need to have at least dual Pentium. And you have to go quadro if you want to do two slices at once.

180g NetBSD server

[leoboiko]

I submitted this back at the slashdot.jp announcement, but it was rejected here, and now I hate slashdot.

NEC is working on a 180g NetBSD-based server. The Univerge WNX is targeted at low noise, space economy, wereable computing, and on-the-fly multimedia processing. They claim a single person can use it with a mini-camera to brocadcast real-time video and audio (through wireless LAN/FOMA) and record the data at the same time, with two CF slots. Cool gadget. Japanese press release (with pictures).

More pics

[ThatComputerGuy]

Pics here, since the other stuff doesn't seem to be loading. Taken at LW SF on Wednesday.

(If it isn't all there yet, give it a few minutes to upload.)

Not enough...

[Espectr0]

...until someone implements RFC 2324 - Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)

Re:Oh man, a toaster?!

[dsginter]

Have they made one of these chips yet to control your wife?

Yep

What if this gets hacked?

[Vornzog]

I know the BSD's are pretty secure, but what if this gets hacked?

Your server is toast.
Your toast is burned.
Your toasty server may burn down the house.

Any remote exploit is a potential fire hazard!

All around the country,
coast to coast,
people ask what I like most.
Now I don't like to brag,
and I dont like to boast,
I just tell them,
I like toast.
Web toast.

Re:What if this gets hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, then you get the internet fridge... and some weenie hacks into it.

"Welcome to the GE Model 2723 Refridgerator!"
# sysctl.fridge.temp = 80
# hostname "GE Model 2723 Salmonella Incubator"
# logout

But does it have a 1GB Flash Drive?

[WillAffleckUW]

sure it can make toast, and play MP3, but without a flash drive, it's just not geek enough.

Ummmm ....

[gstoddart]

My first question is, er, why?

What possible use is a toaster that plays music or has Apache installed? Is there some mysterious market for high-end toasters with embedded processors I'm missing?

People make wierd things. :-P

Re:Ummmm ....

[Guy Harris]

Is there some mysterious market for high-end toasters with embedded processors I'm missing?

You're looking at it.

Re:Oh man, a toaster?!

[Chosen Reject]

They are very close!

What happens?

[elgee]

What exactly happens when your toast is slashdotted?

Re:I don't think so.... but hold the butter

[WillAffleckUW]

f you had a beowulf cluster of these, you could toast a whole loaf at once!

Yeah, but since it only handles MP3 and not Ogg, I think I'll wait for the upgrade which also handles bagels.

Not that I do really mind...

[SiGiN]

... but toasts with taste of Theo, might be rather bitter.

Instructions: How to make toast

[ObjetDart]

1. Insert bread slice into toaster

2. Make sure Apache is running

3. Post link to toaster on Slashdot

4. Wait 3 minutes. Bing! Toast is ready!

The Linux Toaster.

[leoxx]

Linux also ran on toasters first.

Re:The Linux Toaster.

[kv9]

Linux also ran on toasters first.

while im sure you were aiming for the funny mods, we should still clarify that the linux-toaster thing [and others] are just glorified casemods. this shit actually controls the toaster. not bad for the old-bsd-lady, from bigiron to toasters.

Ok, I give up.

[bluephone]

Back in high school, '92 I think, a friend and I created a serial toaster. I did the hardware and he did up the controlling software that even had a door for our BBS. From ToasTerm, with pretty ANSI graphics and everything, you could select the toast level, "push" the lever to turn it on, see a little timer for how much longer was left, and then "see" the toast pop up. The toaster hooked to a serial port, the brown-o-meter was controlled with a stepper motor froma floppy drive, and the up/down lever was a pair of servo motors.

If you looked carefully in the door program, there was an easter egg that would launch the toast out of the toaster. I rigged a solenoid to fire against the handle, and the toast would fly a good 5 feet. When this eventually shattered the plastic handle, so we replaced that with a steel bolt so it wouldn't break.

Eventually the controller board did manage to catch fire. But ToasTerm was still a hit on the BBS so we left it on without the Serial Toaster still connected.

This beats the shit out of our toaster.

Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

The server (which is a TS-7200, same as was used in the toaster) is struggling. Here's a mirror with smaller JPEG's and no PDF.

They forgot to plug in the toaster

[WillAffleckUW]

the URL isn't working.

I hope it's a dual-core toaster.

That's EBAY Material!

[Tsaot]

I'd like to see this extended to a combined toaster/jelly-jet printer. Delicious toast printed to order with the image of your choice. Of course it would require a bread feeder that could do cut slice or continuous loaf.

Can you imagine the load of cash I could make with such a device!

Someone please think of the children!!!

[MasterC]

Just imagine an internet full of online toasters and kitchen sinks. Then the IPv4 address space runs out.

Children won't be able to get IPs for their EZ bake ovens. Dora the Explorer won't get her VoIP phone and have to settle for a land line. Bob the Builder will have to manually drive his bulldozer instead of using the Java applet to remotely drive it.

Will someone please think of the children?

Damn you cruel, cruel world!

ObLogo

[bunnyman]

They already have a logo that seems designed for this!

The first model was a Wireless Toaster

[WillAffleckUW]

but the battery life while toasting was regarded as a defect by users, so they opted to connect to the internet over the power lines, as many rural communities are doing.

Plus, gangs of toast bandits would wargang for insecure toasters, which would then start under or over-toasting or popping up when it was just barely warmed.

finally

[thetoaster17]

i can wear my name with pride

Finally, Toast is on topic!

[paco3791]

"TOAST"
All around the country and coast to coast
people always say "what do you like most?"
i dont wanna brag, i dont wanna boast
i always tell'em i like toast
ya toast!
ya toast!

i get up in the morning about 6 am
have a lil jelly, have a lil jam
take a piece of bread put it in the slot
push down the lever and the wires get hot
i get toast
ya toast!
ahhhhahh toast!

now there's no secret to toasting perfection
there's a dial on the side and you make your selection
you push to the dark or the light and then
if it pops up too soon, press down again
make toast
ya toast!
*mumbling toast*

when the first caveman drove in from the dregs
he didnt know what would go with the bacon and the eggs
must of been a genius got it in his head
plug the toaster in the wall and bought a bag of bread..
and make toast
ya toast!
ugh hmmmmmmm

oh oui oui,monseiur bon jour croquette
uh huh croissant chevy covertte
maurice chevalier eiffel tower
oh oui marie baguettue bon soir
FRENCH TOAST!
FRENCH TOAST!

in (city) or where the heck i am right now
yeah toast
yea hey he hmmm....
TOAST!

- by Heywood Banks

Unsatisfactory

[AnotherSimilarToIt]

Who cares about a toaster? I won't be satisfied until it's on the kitchen sink.

Re:Montreal?

[FragHARD]

You probably in-stalled windoze on your toaster instead of BSD...< DOHHHH!!!/

RUBY 2: I'll Give You Fire

[rasqual]

Anyone who hasn't listened to "I'll give you fire" from the Ruby series (on this one, I believe: http://snipurl.com/gvwa) might enjoy the context it affords this latest "smart appliance" instance.

Proving that a 20 year old quirky radio drama can still be spot on. ;-)

"Black . . . blacker . . . blackessst!"

Toasters with a 'tude!

BSG

[thegameiam]

Is it like one of these toasters?

Damn... now we know how the cylon virus worked...

-David

First Toast!

[uberchicken]

Come on, anybody?

Important question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Will a slashdot effect produce faster toast times?

Wrong processor

[maxwell demon]

An ARM will just not produce enough heat to toast a bread. I'd suggest a Pentium instead.

Re:Wrong processor

[SA Stevens]

I'd suggest an early Athlon. Except then important multimedia apps won't run.

Re:Myth. -- not really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, then, read his: http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/blog.html#20050807_034 0

And please point me to a single code tree, which downloaded from kernel.org would build on everything linux supposedly "runs" on.

And then visit NetBSD's ftp, grab and iso of an obscure platform, look into it, grab the pkgsrc.. And imagine, that each of them builds.

A non-buildable package _IS_ en ERROR upon reported to netbsd's bug tracking system. And they fix that.

Never do they say "if you want it, write it yourself".

It *fries* the bread?

[Trixter]

"while it fries the bread"

So now NetBSD can transmogrify a toaster into a fryer? Can it turn my piece of crap Athlon system into a dual-Xeon?

Toaster++

[guntherweber]

A long time ago a friend sent me this story by email:
Toaster++

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. "What do you think this is?"

One advisor, an engineer, answered first. "It is a toaster," he said. The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer for it?" The engineer replied, "Using a four-bit microcontroller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show you a working prototype."

The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years."

"With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage, links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelet classes."

"The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast than to scrambled eggs."

"Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too."

"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message 'Booting UNIX v. 8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook."

"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80486 with 16MB of memory, a 300MB hard disk, and a SVGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a four-bit microcontroller!)."

The king had the computer scientist thrown in the moat, and they all lived happily ever after.

Damn, NetBSD more portable than Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick, someone make a sandclock running Linux!

Slashdot troll question

[Anonymous Coward]

But does it run Linux?

Finally...

[xRelisH]

Whenever an average Joe sees my modded PC, they always ask me "does it make toast too?". Finally I'm one step closer to actually saying yes!

old netbsd toast banner (circa 2000)

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/images/toast_final12.g if

Correction..

[Luxviaest]

It runs on everything but the kitchen sink. Although I hear they are working on it.

Quick, tell Adama!

[ForemastJack]

Great. A cylon running BSD. As if the whole "now they look like Victoria's Secret models" wasn't enough.

Bastards.

mmm linux world

[Some_Llama]

Saw this at their booth display, pretty impressive, it also made toast, although I bet with some overclocking you could get the toast production times down a bit :P

it fries the bread

[Tandoori Haggis]

So you can put eggs in right?

That would be an ITX omlette...

I made a chilli omlette once. Now if you can get a toaster to do that I might be impressed.

1. Invent toaster that can fry.
2. Put a PC in it.
3. Get it to play MP3's.
4. Network it.
5. Get root.
6. All your breakfasts are belong to script kiddie...

Status of site

[timonak]

This is from an email from Jessie Off on the TS-7200 mailing list: We don't have the bandwidth for that so our web site is pretty much down right now. FWIW, we're not being limited by the TS-7200 CPU or RAM. Only 2% of the CPU is actually being utilized currently. I have Apache configured for up to 30 maximum simultaneous connections (of which all 30 are full) and we're satisfying about 10 page loads per second. We also got linked from http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25321 which has been generating a lot of hits all morning so we weren't really in a position to receive the "slashdot effect" //Jesse Off

Toaster MIB

[dbuttric]

I'm surprised that SNMP, and support for the toaster MIB is not included.
Wouldn't this be an essential part of functionality...

Apache in a toaster?

[kjots]

Great. So now I can worry about a Denial-of-Breakfast attack.

Just kidding folks :P

Er, didn't this happen 10 years ago?

[horza]

There was an ARM based PC that had a built in toaster 10 years ago. A later version, in '96, had a built-in pizza oven. The RiscPC also runs Linux and NetBSD (though if you had RiscOS, a superior version of MacOS X, I'm not sure why you'd want to).

Phillip.

Technical description

[Anonymous Coward]

A typical toaster uses infrared radiation to heat a piece of bread. The heat is usually produced by conducting electricity through nichrome wires (Joule heating).

This revolutionary NetBSD toaster has adopted an original design: the nichrome wires have been replaced by a highly sophisticated device composed of about 55 millions transistors, which is called a Pentium 4.

I can't believe the joke came true!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://sunsite.nus.sg/pub/humour/kingdom.html

Engineer and Computer Scientist

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. "What do you think this is?"

One advisor, an engineer, answered first. "It is a toaster," he said. The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer for it?" The engineer replied, "Using a four-bit microcontroller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show you a working prototype."

The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years."

"With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage, links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelet classes." "The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast than to scrambled eggs."

"Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too."

"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message 'Booting UNIX v. 8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook."

"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80386 with 8MB of memory, a 30MB hard disk, and a VGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a four-bit microcontroller!)."

The king wisely had the computer scientist beheaded, and they all lived happily ever after.

omg!

[Francis85]

Now with mod_bagel and mod_frozen !! oh my!

Re:Oh man, a toaster?!

[ozmanjusri]

But does that claw hammer run BSD?

The 64 hit ones appear to be supported. (I'm assuming that's a typo on the FreeBSD site) ;

As of this writing, the following processors are supported:

* AMD Athlon64 ("Clawhammer"). *
AMD Opteron ("Sledgehammer").

http://www.freebsd.org/relnotes/CURRENT/hardware/a md64/proc.html

Oddly, ball pein users seem to be completely out of luck at this stage. Probably a driver issue

The last think I need is a self aware toaster...

[yoBaby]

The last thing I need is a self aware toaster... http://www.clevercaption.com/202.html

Don't worry it's not news

[mystyc]

At least, not until they overclock it. Now an overclocked toaster running NetBSD. Now that's News!

~Kevin

Jelly-jet is overrated

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody knows that jelly-jet is so outdated and inefficient. Even my g/f uses jam sublimation, and her spread is so much crisper, smoother and even than what jelly-jet provides.

I prefer spicer printing; even though the Cinnamon/Mint/Vanilla/papriKa toner cartridges are much more expensive and don't have the breadth of color, they'll spice thousands of pieces of bread and have a much higher flavor granularity. I get up to 2400 grains per inch on mine, but that's a little strong for my casual, everyday toast consumption.

I kid you not!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just yesterday I was talking to my sister as she was unwraping a wedding gift that was of course a toaster. Then i said how toasters should have a countdown to tell you how much long you would have to wait ... then of course i thought of a computer controled toaster. I wasn't thinking of actually putting the machine in the toaster though.

Here is the kicker though ... Its the same damn kind of toaster that is featured in the article. Its an Red Oster ... it looks a little funny though.

This quote, "Well, we're definitely not planning on going into full production with this..." makes me so sad that i may well go and demand to have her toaster fo a little project!

Er...?

[Le_Batleur]

Am I the only one here with the in-depth culinary skills to point out that toasters *grill* bread, they do not fry it?

But..

[skochak]

Like any OS...

Does this thing actually have to be booted up?? and then be shutdown??

I mean would you actually wait 10 minutes to boot it up to make 2 slices of toast???

The King's Toaster

[Anonymous Coward]

Many easily-Googled sites describe the contrast between an engineer's approach to making toast, and a computer scientist's.

Sounds like the developers who made the BSD toaster forgot the part where "The king had the computer scientist thrown in the moat, and they all lived happily ever after."

It's not even April yet...

[whoopass]

oh, just kidding.

Hot

[BigYawn]

The first geek project your girlfriend will qualifiy as "hot"...

Re:Oh man, a toaster?!

[PhoenixPath]

I think he meant the claw hammer used by the guy in the above mentioned article to kill his wife.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You sick bastards! What's next? NetBSD controlled blow up dolls?

*looks hopefully to the future* ;^)

Re:Yeah, but... It is official

[lahi]

So in other (fewer) words, NetBSD is toast?

-Lasse

That's so

[liamjfoy]

...sweet!

Microsoft Toaster

[jusdisgi]

This reminds me of someone's farsical description of a "Microsoft Toaster." The part that sticks out in my memory was that it would use a quad xeon controller....one processor for each side of each piece of toast.

Re:I don't think so.... but hold the butter

[idontgno]

Yeah, but since it only handles MP3 and not Ogg...

Hey, scrambled ogg and spam is great on slashdot-toasted NetBSD bagels.

Wow

[Nomikos]

Thanks! That gave me a good insight into a programming issue i was having, not knowing which approach to take..
Toaster it is.