[0hijinks]

I think it's really cool to create minimalist OSes. Something about perfboard projects and old, slow CPUs tickles my buttons. But I'm struggling to come up with a use case for this project in the End Times. In theory, this allows me to flash a ROM connected to an old through-hole, 8/16-bit CPU like a Z80, 8086, 6809 and 6502. I guess my issue is why and how would I do that during the end of the world?

I can't think of a way to come into possession of MPUs like that without intentionally buying them ahead of time. And if I'm going to stockpile those, I might as well stockpile a more capable MCU or MPU instead and flash it with something else. 99.9% of what I'd want to do with minimalist computers in the apocalyptic wasteland would be just fine without an OS. Bare-bones MCUs work spectacularly for control systems, wireless cryptosystems, data logging, etc.

Maybe I didn't look hard enough in the README [1], but I don't see how I'd bootstrap a system like this without already having a much more capable system on standby. Which comes back to the issue of... why?

[1] https://git.sr.ht/~vdupras/collapseos

[vdupras]

Collapse OS is fully self-hosting. Once you have such a system, you can improve it and deploy it elsewhere from within. But yes, your initial deployment will come from a POSIX machine. This is why I talk about two stages of collapse.

[0hijinks]

That's kind of a bummer, but still neat to have built-in self-hosting. I think I've seen videos of perfboard computers that allow manual data entry with pushbuttons and manual clocks. I could see that being extended to punch cards. (Not trying to be flippant; I think that could be an interesting extension to this sort of project. Have a bucket of parts, a perfboard, and some paper? Let's flash an operating system.)