Running Collapse OS on real hardware
Collapse OS is designed to run on ad-hoc post-collapse hardware
build from scavenged parts. These machines don't exist yet.
To make Collapse OS as likely as possible to be useful in a
post-collapse world, we try to give as many examples as possible
of deployment on hacked-up hardware.
For example, we include a recipe for running a Sega Master
System with a PS/2 keyboard plugged to a hacked up controller
cord with an AVR MCU interfacing between the PS/2 connector and
the controller port.
This setup, for which drivers are included in Collapse OS, exist
in only one copy, the copy the author of the recipe made.
However, the idea is that this recipe, which contains schematics
and precise instructions, could help a post-collapse engineer
to hack her way around and achieve something similar. She would
then have a good example of schematics and drivers that are
known to work.
Organisation of this folder
While /doc's top folder contain documentation about software,
this folder contains instructions and schematics about ways to
get Collapse OS running on actual hardware.
Each CPU architecture has its own subfolder with recipes about
specific machines of that arch, while /doc/hw's top folder
contain instructions on broader topics, such as SD cards,
floppies, EEPROM, etc.
Most instructions have companion code in /arch that is conve-
niently wrapped in Makefiles for easy building.
How to use
If you want to run Collape OS on real hardware, browse this
folder's contents until you find something that closely matches
your own hardware (or hardware-to-be).
If you live in a pre-collapse world and are looking for an easy
platform to try Collapse OS on, easy pickings are PC/AT (which
run on modern PCs supporting legacy BIOS), Sega Genesis w/
Everdrive and TI-84+. Those options don't require any soldering.
Drivers
Most instructions in this subfolder tell you to add drivers to
your Collapse OS. What is meant by this is that you need to
rebuild your binary with an augmented xcomp unit. See
doc/bootstrap for details, but the short version is that you'll
want to load your driver code between the COREL call and
subsystems. Then, if your driver needs initialization, then
you'll add it to INIT.
This page generated at 2024-11-01 21:05:03 from documentation in CollapseOS snapshot 20230427.