I recently stumbled across Collapseos – an operating system designed to run on Z80 hardware, such as the Sega Master System and Genesis. Throughout life, I’ve seen restrictions* force some amazing innovations (think: that scene in Apollo 13!) and this is an excellent example of that: Developers working under the confines of Z80 hardware to make a usable operating system.
At the moment, it can’t do too much, but people who want to give it a try can download the SMS version here: http://retrorgb.com/assets/collaposeOS-2019-10-15.sms
To compile your own, visit the SMS branch of the Github: https://github.com/hsoft/collapseos/tree/master/recipes/sms
There’s even a schematic to connect a keyboard to your SMS, which is a huge help, as typing with the controller is tedious at best: https://github.com/hsoft/collapseos/tree/master/recipes/sms/kbd
I’m really looking forward to seeing if people can think up some practical uses for this. Heck, even more debugging tools might be cool!
More info: https://collapseos.org/
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*unfortunately, the “restrictions” put in place for this project, are a group of people who think society as a whole is about to “collapse”…hence the name. While it’s at least technically plausible (unlike, say, flat earthers), the community surrounding this paranoia definitely gives me the flat-earth vibe. I’m not trying to talk down to the people behind the project, I’d just like to politely prepare you for what to expect if you research this project and its roots. If you do decide to get involved, please ask them one question: If society collapses and we’re all scrambling to run OS’ on a Master System…how can we get to github to download the files?
