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Continuing work on KittyOS

A project log for Cat-644

An 8-bit computer based around an AVR ATMega-644 and junk-box SRAM.

marsMars 03/21/2019 at 21:170 Comments

For the March 2019 Retrochallenge, I am continuing to work in kittyOS.  I accomplished a lot last time, and am adding more this month.

For full details, check my personal webpage http://mwsherman.com/rc2019/03/

The goal is to turn the CAT-644 into a 'real' computer.  And what I mean by that, is eventually I want to be able to turn it on, open a text editor, write some source code, compile, and run it, without turning on my PC.  To do this it needs a real operating system.

The Unix model is everything is a file.  This has been copied to death.  I am intentionally trying something different.  Instead, everything is a device.  A special device, a mux, lets a program select thru a collection of devices.  The plan, is the sdcard filesystem, is just a tree of virtual muxes, eventually selecting virtual block or char devices containing data.  You could call them directories or files.  But you don't need a traditional filesystem to get started;  The basic setup is a single mux containing a single device such as a serial port.

Hardware Drivers

The following is all working in the kittyOS hardware drivers.  Not all is bound to the OS by syscalls, but the driver's work on their own:

Implemented and Working:

Planned:

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