operating systems... and OS9

They keep getting bigger and slower and more fragile, it seems. I was delighted to find PuppyOS, a version of Linux (should really be called Gnu/Linux) which had almost everything I might need in less than 100MB (or less than 50MB if I want to add some other things later). In today's values that is incredibly small. Puppy is also very reliable.

But I got to thinking... My Amiga had an operating system that took up around 1MB of space -- yes, an absurdly small space. It was extremely reliable (if you didn't run badly written programs -- the hardware didn't have memory management).

Surprise! The AROS (Amiga Research Operating System) http://www.aros.org/ is available as free, opensource software and fits a very pretty Amiga clone operating system in 18MB on a bootable CD along with an incredible number of tools, demos, and utilities. The actual OS itself is not much more than a megabyte. And memory management is either running now or planned. (More info later as I learn more about it.) The screen shot on the left is of a new paint program available for AROS. [Later: OK, AROS is still a work in progress, but it is still pretty amazing. I got the feeling that something was spawning extra tasks, slowing it down gradually. I'll keep looking in on this project from time to time.]

And then I got to thinking even further... OS9 -- a brilliant, Unix-like disk operating system for the Tandy Color Computer was multitasking and multiuser, and lived on 360KB floppy disks. I knew of the emulators for the CoCo people had developed for pleasure. I wondered if anybody had developed a free, open version of OS9.

Yes! It is called NitrOS9 (because it actually runs faster than the original OS9) and is at http://www.nitros9.org
You can find more at http://nitros9.lcurtisboyle.com/nitros9.html and http://www.sandelman.ca/People/Alan_DeKok/interests/NitrOS-9.faq.html

Is this amazing or what??? Though OS9 is primarily a command line oriented OS, it also has graphical shells. Look at the screen image and think about it: This OS runs on a machine that has 64KB of RAM for the old machines, up to 512KB (half a megabyte) on the top of the range machines, floppy disks, and no hard drive. These days people generally don't think much can be done on a machine unless it has a couple of thousand times as much RAM, and most of us would be absolutely lost without a hard drive.

It is just begging to be adapted to an ultra low power consumption handheld.

I can buy a pendant USB drive that holds 1GB of space (1,000MB). Imagine what can be done here with today's static processors that can run on variable speeds (right down to 0HZ) and static RAM that holds information on a feeble trickle of power, and the newer LCD displays that require energy only to alter pixels (an unchanging display uses zero power). We could have handheld devices that operate on the power from a small solar cell, or the ambient noise, or the heat of your hand.

a mum and her baby visit

It has been really hard to get some good pics of the wallabies. They visit regularly, but stay beyond bushes (there's plenty of shrubbery around here) or they move off when I get my camera.

I finally snapped some pics of Mama Wallaby when she returned. She had been here earlier with her joey (hidden in her pouch in these pics) and a very horny male wallaby. The joey was a delight to watch. It is growing incredibly quickly and whereas before it was clumsy and very wobbly (no pun intended) on its legs, this time it was joyfully bouncing around with excellent coordination. If it was human it would have been laughing and calling out yippee! It never strayed far from Mum though. Imagine a cat-sized, skinny rat standing upright on big back legs. Poor little thing must have worn itself out with all the hopping around, because when Mum and baby returned the joey stayed in warmth and comfort. The male must have got his bit of ass because he didn't show up the second time.

The first pic is smaller than the others because in my haste I moved the camera, blurring the shot a bit. Reducing the size helps make that less apparent. (And I shot these through my never-cleaned cobweb-covered kitchen windows which makes them a bit blurry too... yeah, I'm not much on the housekeeping.)