Anyone know about running Linux/Unix or any *nix operating systems on a ti 84+ calculator? Any other OS besides the stock one would be nice.
I don't know about the possibilities but I would imagine it'd be nigh impossible. The clock speed is only ~15MHz plus you have ~1MB of memory. I'm not saying it can't be done but it wouldn't really feel like Linux in my opinion.
Those types of OSes also tend to make extensive use of things like memory protection and MMUs, neither of which the Z80 processor has.
Getting Linux to run in 15MHz, sure. Getting it to run in 128KB of RAM (being generous with the model), you might barely get the kernel loaded if you use a basic uclinux kernel. Lacking an MMU? That is a big problem.
If you turn your attention to the m68k calcs, then punix might be worth looking at.
If you turn your attention to the m68k calcs, then punix might be worth looking at.
No way to run Linux directly on a Z80, indeed. A guy once wrote an ARM emulator for AVR, and successfully booted Linux + minimal userspace - but while it's a noteworthy technical prowess, it's cheating around the fact that a platform cannot run Linux on its own
Given enough RAM, a 68k can however run Linux, either the mmu version (68020 onwards) or the nommu version (68000). Using the XIP feature to execute the kernel from NOR Flash, assuming XIP is supported on the 68k series, would reduce RAM consumption. However, the TI-68k series only has 256 KB of RAM, so I'm not convinced Linux would be able to run with so little RAM...
Given enough RAM, a 68k can however run Linux, either the mmu version (68020 onwards) or the nommu version (68000). Using the XIP feature to execute the kernel from NOR Flash, assuming XIP is supported on the 68k series, would reduce RAM consumption. However, the TI-68k series only has 256 KB of RAM, so I'm not convinced Linux would be able to run with so little RAM...
Member of the TI-Chess Team.
Co-maintainer of GCC4TI (GCC4TI online documentation), TIEmu and TILP.
Co-admin of TI-Planet.
Co-maintainer of GCC4TI (GCC4TI online documentation), TIEmu and TILP.
Co-admin of TI-Planet.
Since part of the original poster's question was about any sort of third-party operating system, and AHelper didn't bring it up, I think it's worth mentioning GlassOS, a third-party operating system for the TI-84 Plus calculators written almost entirely in C. While it's not complete, it does have a lot of cool features, is open-source, and provides a good toolchain for writing your own C programs.
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