Running Ancient UNIX On Nintendo Gameboy 176
An anonymous reader writes "Amit Singh has a piece on his site about running the 5th edition UNIX distribution on a Nintendo Gameboy, of all things. Tons of screenshots and source included but what really makes this entertaining and informational in an ubergeekly sort of way is his side stories on UNIX history ... ARM CPU ... compiling and running random programs on the Gameboy, etc. There are even notes on recompiling the original Unix kernel to make it smaller for the GBA!"
Great web site and a good read (Score:2, Funny)
Nintendo has been in the gaming business since 1889
I believe this is when they came out with their first two hits, Horse and Buggy Kong and Prairie Invaders.
On a more serious note, this is well worth the time to read. It is fairly long but well written (other than a few tiny errors as above) and extremely informative. The site is well laid out and easy to follow. The history lesson alone is worth the time spent.
Cheers,
Erick
Re:Great web site and a good read (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo [wikipedia.org]
Re:Great web site and a good read (Score:1, Offtopic)
Cheers,
Erick
Slashdot's Selectors (Score:1, Interesting)
The emotions we experience and express have been hard-wired into our consciousness and reinforced through natural selection. There must be some selective advantage to possessing the capability to become enraged, or to loathe something.
IOW, Nature says: "Anger and loat
Re:Great web site and a good read... But FLAW (Score:5, Informative)
o 1 the game boy is not running unix
o 2 they dont have a game boy they have the game boy advance
o 3 they simulate a PDP11 on a game boy advance simulator running on a mac/pc
instead why dont you look at howto use uclinux on GBA...
http://wwwhsse.fh-hagenberg.at/Studierende/hse0
regards
John Jones
Re:Great web site and a good read... But FLAW (Score:3, Informative)
From TFA: "You can try gbaunix either using a Game Boy Advance emulator, or on a real Game Boy Advance. For the latter, you would need, say, a flash-based cartridge and a flash programmer."
But the worst limitation is "gbaunix does not have an input mechanism currently. You can only execute a canned sequence of UNIX shell commands. The sequence must be specified at compile-time as an array of strings in gba/gba_kbd.h in the source. W
Speaking of flash game cartridges... (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of flash game cartridges... (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of flash game cartridges... (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of flash game cartridges... (Score:2)
gbaunix does not have an input mechanism (Score:2)
Actually it was playing cards... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, in a way, Nintendo's empire was built thanks to gangsters.
Re:Actually it was playing cards... (Score:5, Interesting)
(from wikipedia)
Disney.... even worse then yakuza.... brought them to power
Re:Actually it was playing cards... (Score:2, Funny)
"I summon Goons of Leg-Breaking!" ..?"
".. I've never seen that card
"What card?"
"oh."
Re:Actually it was playing cards... (Score:2)
By the way, if you ever are in Japan (or some authentic "Japantown"), you should check out Nintendo's Hanafuda cards -- they're awesome. So are their western playing cards. (Yes, they still make both.)
Re:Great web site and a good read (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/history.jsp [nintendo.com]
Not an error (Score:1, Informative)
On a more serious note, this is well worth the time to read. It is fairly long but well written (other than a few tiny errors as above) and extremely informative.
Actually, that was not an error. Nintendo has been in business in the gaming area way before the advent of computer games. They started out as a Hanafuda (traditional Japanese) playing cards company. They also made Mahjong boards, and western style playing cards. In the long history of Nin
Re:Great web site and a good read (Score:1)
Wow, that's great ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow, that's great ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that in order to run 5th edition UNIX with gbaunix, you must have an RK05 disk image of 5th edition UNIX, which is not included in the gbaunix distribution. SCO owns the copyright for the 5th edition (and several others).
Thankfully, Caldera released (under a BSD-style license) this particular UNIX edition, along with some others, shortly before the name change in 2002. Here [tuhs.org] is the license [PDF Alert], if anyone's interested.
Re:Wow, that's great ... (Score:2)
I don't know if that would deter Darl. After all SCO still distributes Linux but is suing IBM over alleged copyright infringement.
Overheard in Utah (Score:1)
Re:Wow, that's great ... (Score:1)
but I cant wait for some one to port a real OS with handwriting recognition/keyword to the new NDS, which has the touch screen on the bottom, then I can carry it to work, play it during a meeting and if some one asks:
"come on, it's not a handheld game console, it's a PDA."
Re:Wow, that's great ... (Score:1)
Nintendo learned from its GBA mistake, and it appears the DS will be encrypted out the w@z00. Rumors have it that DS Game Paks will use encryption that's much stronger than CSS. Flash cards? Fuhgeddaboutit.
linux in bed (Score:2)
If you believe that linux is less bloated and more stable, then it's THE natural OS for embedded systems.
Well, if you want to get your daily fix of "linux has been placed in something else" news... you can always visit linuxdevices.com [linuxdevices.com]
If you want to do-it yourself... ibm embedded. [ibm.com]
Cool (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:2)
She's been trying to convince you for a year?? How cheap are you, anyway?
--
GMail invites for iPod referrals [slashdot.org]
Re:Cool (Score:1)
A gameboy is a small price to pay for, well .....
Wow, what a bunch of humorless bastards (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:1)
I thought you were going to say: "Hey, my wife and I have been trying to conceive for a year now with a gameboy"
phew
Er ... actually ... (Score:2)
Advise caution.
Re:Cool (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:2)
SCO (Score:3, Funny)
Re:SCO (Score:3, Funny)
That said, I can't wait for the emulator for the Unix GB so you can actually play GameBoy games on it after booting in to Unix.
Old but funny (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Old but funny (Score:2)
NetBSD (Score:5, Interesting)
checks site.....
hmm apparently not, but lots of ARM ports should be doable..
Re:NetBSD (Score:2)
Re:NetBSD (Score:3, Interesting)
looking at the relevant page of the FAQ [village.org] the last model (PDP-11/94) got above 18mhz...which was approx 4x the original speed.
Looking the specs [kernelthread.com] on the link mentioned in the article the GBA has a 16.76 mhz ARM processor (no memory management or cache in this model) *and* a 4mhz or 8mhz Z80 to run the old GB games.
As to your point about NetBSD, the arm port26 [netbsd.org] runs on the very earliest commericial ARM machines so I see no reason why it couldn't run on a
Re:NetBSD (Score:2)
SIHM is used to simulate/emulate a PDP-11 so that this old crusty version of Unix can run. Running NetBSD on this would require actual Kernel Porting and some toolchain tweaking. All this little project needed was SIHM at the core, which needed ever so little help to run on the GBA. From there, Unix Version 5 just needed some compiling for the PDP-11.
Re:NetBSD (Score:2)
Surpised NetBSD hasn't been ported to this though - everything seems to run NetBSD!!
april fool ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:april fool ? (Score:1)
Please... (Score:4, Funny)
...try not to mention "ancient eunuchs" and "gameboys" in the same sentence.
The Great Wall Tycoon.... (Score:5, Funny)
His dates are flawed. Nintendo's been making games since 475 B.C. when the first version of "The Great Wall Tycoon" came out. Man, talk about addictive....
Re:The Great Wall Tycoon.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Great Wall Tycoon.... (Score:2)
The original post is making fun of what they thought was a typo.. which wasn't.
Plus the original post aparently thinks nintendo is from china and not japan.
I wonder.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I wonder.. (Score:2)
In other news, Nintendo saw sales of its GBA drop as people realized that the previously cool device would be used for the decidedly uncool task of voting.
Re:I wonder.. (Score:2)
Re:I wonder.. (Score:2)
Presidential Timeline:
Year 1: Relax and recover from campaign. Bring the family to the new mansion. Party with contributors.
Year 2: Contemplate doing work, or simply visit Camp David, play with his *nix GBA (ha, thought this was off-topic!)
Year 3: Do a few things (blow something up), start working on campaign
Year 4: Brag about the previous three years, shake babies, kiss constituents hands.
Year 4.5: Talk bad about the opponent, read uncensored news [freeinternetpress.com] and wonder why people hate him,
Input (Score:4, Informative)
I am aware that commands currently need to be selected at compile-time.
It's interesting, but doesn't have a lot of practial uses.
Re:Input (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Input (Score:1)
Re:Input (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:GBA RAM packs (Score:2)
Personally, my next mod was going to be getting an Ericsson keyboard and
Re:GBA RAM packs (Score:1)
Old style gameboy (Score:4, Insightful)
Although, even now I know which one it is I'm still not entirely convinced this is all that useful either!
I'm probably just missing the point, which is something like because I can!
Uses for a GBA with Unix (Score:3, Interesting)
The same could be done here. Upload your ROM in to you host GBA; do this so that when the batter
Re:Uses for a GBA with Unix (Score:1)
Re:Uses for a GBA with Unix (Score:2)
>smart, creative
>amazing powers for good instead of evil....
Who said we aren't?
Yes.. But (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes.. But (Score:1)
Gameboy TCP/IP stack and Web server (Score:5, Interesting)
Hard coded commands mean I can't code on this ? (Score:5, Funny)
When I first saw it , I wondered how he actually typed in the C code, and then I saw the keyboard buffer code :). It'd have been fun to say, to save in ED, press Down Down , Up Left, X (Mortal Kombat memories).
Lookup Unix Version7 sources [southern-storm.com.au] which have been ported to run on 32 Bit CPUs . With a 50k kernel binary and similarly shrunk libs , it's a nice thing to play around with.
I've been planning to play around with gpsim and gpsim-lcd for sometime nowRe:Hard coded commands mean I can't code on this ? (Score:1)
That doesn't sound much stranger than some emacs or vi sequences.
Re:Hard coded commands mean I can't code on this ? (Score:1)
It's quite difficult to press X on a GBA, since there is no X button.
d'oh (Score:1)
Next logical step... (Score:2)
Re:Next logical step... (Score:2)
Everybody knows that nethack and angband are the only games that need more keys to work then emacs...
Re:Next logical step... (Score:2)
Re:Next logical step... (Score:1, Informative)
OT: Workboy... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Workboy had a keyboard, a database management system (?) and more. A Google search for "Workboy" and Gameboy returned like five results, two Slashdot...
Good description, picture won't load [eagb.net]
"Retro Space", picture [terra.com.br] Translation [tinyurl.com]
The first link says they are "rare" too bad, I still want one.
Re:OT: Workboy... (Score:2)
Whoa... (Score:2)
Im sure thats available on [insert pda here] but I already have a gameboy...
I wonder if he would be able to sell *BSD carts or something of the sort.
How to reboot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How to reboot (Score:1)
Re:How to reboot (Score:2)
All fine and well... but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:All fine and well... but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux on the XBOX is freakin' cool! It's basically a full linux PC for 200 bucks.
I'm glad to see more interest in Real Unix (Score:2)
SInce it's running SIMH PDP-11... (Score:1)
Re:SInce it's running SIMH PDP-11... (Score:2)
Wow! (Score:2)
Kill me.
Does this mean?..... (Score:4, Funny)
"This page hosted on a 1997 Nintendo Game Boy."
I think I'd rather see a potato-powered [d116.com] server....
Mmmm.. Command Line Interface (Score:2)
Bah (Score:2)
Re:More Info (Score:1, Interesting)
So we really can/em? imagine a beowoulf cluster of these?
Re:More Info (Score:1)
Or should they be called 'boxen mini'?
Re:More Info (Score:2)
DON'T CLICK LINK (Score:2)
Regards,
Steve
Re:And also ... (Score:1)
Oh, you didn't want a serious reply? ;)
Re:And also ... (Score:2, Informative)
Sadly, the GameBoy Advance doesn't have a MMU. Otherwise, I'm sure someone would be trying to port Linux to it already...
Re:And also ... (Score:2)
info [embedded.com]
oh and here as well as the thousands more sites about it indexed on www.google.com..
Linux can run on MMU-less processors quite well, and has done so for a long time now.
Re:And also ... (Score:2, Informative)
ucLinux is in the process of being ported to the Gameboy Advance, as can be seen here. [fh-hagenberg.at]. It seems like its getting to be quite usable, if your pretty good with a directional contral pad and 4 buttons...
I could imagine that the serial port could be used for some sort of network input like this guy did here. [fivemouse.com]
Re:And also ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Perhaps this customer wasn't crazy. (Score:1)
Re:Has anyone asked this question? (Score:1)