this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
104 points (97.3% liked)

Linux

47231 readers
832 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] mindbleach 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The meta-analysis on Lobsters is also an interesting read.

Oh thank god, Lobsters is the name of the website. I was not prepared for a rabbit-hole where crustaceans were somehow relevant to a dead-end Intel ISA. I already know too much about MCS-51 because of VHS.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

MCS-51

MCS-51, as in the Intel Microcontroller? I'm trying to find some link between that chip and the VHS standard, but I'm not immediately coming up with anything. From my reading, I see that some variants of the MCS-51 incorporate DSP functionality, which would make for a good analogue media device, but I'm not seeing any VHS VCRs that use one.

[–] mindbleach 5 points 9 months ago

The same! It's the "CPU" in the View-Master Interactive Vision. They shipped with a poorly-labeled AMD-manufactured chip that could only be an 8051 or compatible, based on its pinouts. There's also a 9918-ish video chip, like the ColecoVision, MSX1, or TI-99/4A. The only other big chip is some kind of gate array. I'm almost certain that chip shoves code into 256 bytes of PRG-RAM for the Harvard-architecture MCU... so that Mickey Mouse can fight ghosts with a shotgun.