O/S design & implementation - was Re: FPGA tricks - Re: using new technology on old machines

[Paul Koning]

> On Jun 16, 2015, at 2:49 AM, ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
> 
>> ...
>> 
> Since the computer I designed is a *small* computer, 8 & 16 bit operating systems is what I am looking at for ideas. This is a 18 bit cpu with the concept, byte access of memory needs true 18 bit addressing
> and 16 bits is bit small for general 1970's data. Think of it as a something like a 9 bit 6800 cpu.

If you’re looking at 1960s designs, you should be fine even if the machine had wider words.  By the standards of that era, any modern computer (probably including the one in your microwave oven) is *large*.  For example, the THE OS memory footprint is about 16k words (48k bytes), and that includes not just what we think of as a kernel but also all the device drivers and a bunch of language support library code.  Other designs from that era are smaller still.

	paul