Collapse OS

Bootstrap post-collapse technology

Winter is coming and Collapse OS aims to soften the blow. It is a Forth (why Forth?) operating system and a collection of tools and documentation with a single purpose: preserve the ability to program microcontrollers through civilizational collapse. It is designed to:

1. Run on minimal and improvised machines.
2. Interface through improvised means (serial, keyboard, display).
3. Edit text and binary contents.
4. Compile assembler source for a wide range of MCUs and CPUs.
5. Read and write from a wide range of storage devices.
6. Assemble itself and deploy to another machine.

Additionally, the goal of this project is to be as self-contained as possible. With a copy of this project, a capable and creative person should be able to manage to build and install Collapse OS without external resources (i.e. internet) on a machine of her design, built from scavenged parts with low-tech tools.

The Collapse OS project is completed! It can be downloaded here. Highlights:

• Runs on Z80, 8086, 6809 and 6502 machines with very little resources. See hardware support list.
• Can assemble Z80, AVR, 8086, 6809 and 6502 binaries.
• Can disassemble 6502 and 6809.
• Can emulate 6502 and 6809 (in Collapse OS itself!).
• Can program AVR microcontrollers.
• Has a command line text editor similar to Forth's traditional editor as well as a visual text editor inspired by UNIX' VI.
• Has a visual binary editor.
• Has the full power of a reasonably well-featured Forth interpreter.
• Exceedingly simple: The "real" portion of the code (excludes CVM, POSIX tools, doc, but includes everything a post-collapse computer would need to fullfill its purpose on all supported devices) is less than 200 kilobytes.
• Runs on any POSIX environment through a VM implemented in C.
• Built from a POSIX environment with minimal tooling: only cc, make and curses are needed.

Dusk OS

I haven't touched Collapse OS in the last few months because I got sucked up in a new project, Dusk OS, an operating system designed to be maximally useful during what I call the first stage of collapse.

Development has been doing well and the result so far is impressive, so much that I'm thinking making Collapse OS a part of Dusk OS. To be determined.

Collapse OS can be downloaded here.

Documentation is in text files in "doc/". Begin with "intro.txt". Alternatively, James Stanley hosts an online Collapse OS documentation browser.

Another interesting alternative for documentation is Michael Schierl's PDF export of it (code that generates it). Unlike James' export, it's not automatically kept up to date, but it's a great way to print the whole thing at once.

You can also try Collapse OS directly on your browser with Michael Schierl's JS Collapse OS emulator which is awesome but it isn't always up to date. The "Javascript Forth" version is especially awesome: it's not a z80 emulator, but a javascript port of Collapse OS!

You are inspired by Collapse OS and would like to fund its development? I don't do any kind of crowdfunding, but if you happen to be a rich philanthropist, maybe we can do something.

Discussion

The best place to discuss the project is on its private mailing list.

There's also Tumble Forth, a blog I've started where I write articles around Collapse OS and Dusk OS. Interesting discussions can happen around those articles.

Related efforts

Here is a list of related efforts that I find noteworthy:

• Tumble Forth
• Dusk OS
• Public Domain Books to Restart Computer Technology
• Civboot: a civilizational bootstrapper
• Simplifier
• Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ
• The Vintage Technology Digital Archive
• A big collection of Apple-related documentation
• Daniel Marks' electronic designs focusing on resilience
• Michael Schierl's UXN port of Collapse OS
• Deadly Optimism, Useful Pessimism