[Gllug] The BBC and Microsoft.

[jim]

On Mon, 29 Oct 2001, Dan Kolb wrote:

> On Sunday 28 Oct 2001 18:20 pm, Dylan wrote:
> > Does anyone know if a Linux (-like) system could be coaxed into running on
> > one of the BBC micros (or any 6502-based) board?
> 
> Somehow, probably not. The 6502 is an 8-bit CPU (IIRC), 
> non-multitasking/multi-threading. And the BBCs only had 32K memory (model B), 
> the Master had 128k. Good luck if you can get a Unix-like OS on there. 
> Possibly with some really, really ugly and fudged assembler code.

I wouldn't bet my life on it. I know Unix-like shells exist for the
Commodore 64, which uses a 1MHz 6502 (well actually a 6510; it's
instruction-set compatible but has a few hardware differences). The Beeb,
on the other hand, has a 2MHz 6502A. Yes, the Commodore 64 can access all
its 64K of RAM as a contiguous address space, but expansion boards exist
for the Beeb to bring it up to 64K or more (not contiguous though, you'd
need to bank switch), and if you had a 2nd processor over the Tube I think
such a thing would be quite feasible. (The Z80 copro ran CP/M, there is
mentioned in the Advanced User Guide a "forthcoming" 16032 copro running
UNIX but I haven't heard of one ever being spotted in the wild).

jim (see? there IS still room in the world for an old Beeb hacker)
-- 
http://madeira.physiol.ucl.ac.uk/people/jim/
"... I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the
 loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained."
                                - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet"


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