6 Feb
2012
6 Feb
'12
6:34 p.m.
On 6 Feb 2012 at 18:00, David Griffith wrote:
So, does anyone have a record for oldest or weakest
computer running
Unix? The Z80 definitely did it. Maybe the 8080 could. I don't think
the PDP-8 could. I've been trying to figure out if the PDP-8 could
handle C, and the answers I get range from "I don't know" to
"Definitely not". Something I'd really like to see is a Z-machine
running on the PDP-8.
"Running in native mode", I assume. Any Turing-complete processor
with enough storage can emulate any other processor, however slowly.
So I suppose it's possible to emulate, say, a 68000 on an 8008, given
patience that would make Job despair.
I think Al K. mentioned a port of of Unix to a Univac 1100 series
machine, which probably qualifies both as a crufty and outre
implementation (36 bit word, ones' complement).
Moving a bit up, Cromemco could run Cromix on a System 3 with ZPU; I
think Cromemco claimed that Cromix *was* Unix.
A bit later, Onyx ran Unix/Xenix on Z8000. When the 68K came out,
everyone was running Unix.
--Chuck