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:
- Run on minimal and improvised machines.
- Interface through improvised means (serial, keyboard, display).
- Edit text and binary contents.
- Compile assembler source for a wide range of MCUs and CPUs.
- Read and write from a wide range of storage devices.
- 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.
That’s very interesting to read…thanks. The fact that this person has devoted time and resources to this project means that ‘manageable decline’ is becoming more than just a buzzword.
This isnt any different from just finding the documentation for assembly on a chip. If windows or macos is gone and unfindable. So will this be. No way you will be able to fix up even an early 90's machine. Parts arent even manufactured anymore. Legacy systems are emulated in software environments because of this.
You sound knowledgeable about the topic, what skills might you suggest people learn as an alternative then or along with it, or what would you think people might consider doing?
I see they have a "skills to develop" page which looked interesting: https://collapseos.org/skills.html
Honestly if the world goes to sheet, and you want to do anything with computers, assembly would be good to know. But that's assuming there's still a reliable source of power, and you have pre-stored all the tools/documents to work this way.
yeah, while this is focusing on creating software, really that's only one part of the discussion of maintaining tech throughout such a period of time
This is true, it may not be viable to waste time in such a time trying to create a room-sized device to fix a blown circuit board chip that you can't salvage elsewhere. It may in fact be better to learn how to build farm tools, farm, raise farm animals, etc.
I do agree with this. If it goes too poo we need to keep electronics alive however 1st priority would be building, crafting, sowing, farming. Those youtube blacksmiths will be worth their weight in gold
But the problem is no one would have access to those videos anymore, and they would need to know the person in person.
Yes! Exactly. I think we need to consider having a generator and ham radio
Its a large topic, i would say browse a few Ben Eater youtubes https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2565dvjafglHU Every chip has its own assembly language. So really if you can find the document you can use it in whatever manor you like within its capability. My big hobby was building a flight sim. I was in training to be a simtech but i couldnt live off the pay. My stupid ass tried to move up the ladder now ive been unemployed for a month coz of mandates..
ok thx it looks like he has a website to follow along with that links to the videos as well, for example this came up when searching for "Ben Eater": https://eater.net/6502
Thats if it goes into utter DEVESTATION. hopefully we can hang onto windows linux MacOs and even that OS. Because of planned obsolescance we may have issues. Well kept machines could run up to about 7 to 10 years. But when capacitors etc need to be replaced we best hope we have stock.
This is good and all, but i think i'd rather stick with linux and all the code available to it.
A better thing for a world-wide collapse might be an archive/library of books and information covering everything about how to restart society. Everything from how to make a shelter, how to make basic medicines, surgery, how to find ores for more advanced things. how to make a makeshift power generator with a stream/river, how to build shelter, how to farm, how to build all types of weapons, etc.
People could download them to their low-powered e-reader (solar power charged), or print them off before hand (or after the collapse if they can somehow find a working computer, printer and the paper) everything required to restart society should be in everyone's hands.
so data hoarding (digital or physical), we could do a post on that too
I think this project is really different than ubuntu, it's for use on lower powered devices for more basic tasks (maybe like the difference between a jackhammer or nailgun and a hammer)
I think more like that yeah
Thanks for this! I will play with it.
Personally, we also need a "CollapseRouter", so we can rebuild local networks after a Collapse, hopefully someone works on this.
sounds like an interesting idea, I've seen some apps that communciate via bluetooth peer to peer but that's a shorter distance
maybe a mesh network protocol could be made use of?
Might be a good teaching aid for my grandson and a few discarded laptops or a raspberry.