*nix on 8086 (was installing XP on Sony) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

5 Mar 2005

...
    Actually, Linux will run on an 8086, nowadays,
completely without
 memory management as an embedded OS :)

 I vaguely remember seeing a page about running Linux on the Tosh
 1000 :)  
 That's the ELKS project, which promptly went inactive as soon as they
 got something cobbled together.  A much better bet for running *nix on
 8088 hardware is Minix. 
Or early Xenix.  But my Altos 8086-based machine that runs ancient Xenix
is very proprietary, with (I believe, though I haven't got any 'deep'
technical specs for it) supplimentary hardware for memory protection. 
I have Xenix running on the Nabu 1600. This is an 8086 processor with 512k
or RAM, four serial TTYs, and a custom MMU board which provides memory
protection and management features Xenix will NOT run with the MMU board
removed. Early QNX however does run without the MMU (as does CP/M-86 and
MS-DOS) - QNX is one of the smallest somewhat *nix like OS's that I've
seen run on a bare 8086.

Regards,
Dave
-- 
dave04a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html