Collapse OS

Bootstrap post-collapse technology

Winter is coming and Collapse OS aims to soften the blow. It is a z80 kernel and a collection of programs, tools and documentation that aims to preserve our ability to program microcontrollers through civilizational collapse. Collapse OS brought to completion can:

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

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.

Status

The project lives on github and is progressing well! Highlights:

Try it out

See documentation for instructions.

Discussion

For a general discussion of Collapse OS and the ecosystem of technologies and ideas that may develop around it refer to r/collapseos on Reddit

A more traditional mailing list and IRC (#collapseos on freenode) channels are also maintained.

A lot of questions that you might have may already have been anwered in a big discussion about it occurred on Reddit. I've answered many questions there.

There was also a nice conversation on Hacker News about Collapse OS, but I didn't participate because I don't have a HN account. Also, this community doesn't seem collapse-aware so the idea of participation into this discussion seemed tedious to me. But the user "yellowapple" did a good job of answering many questions in a way that is similar to what I would have.