The MSX2 port of FUZIX has been broken for a while due to the constant evolution of the code base,
but recently Alan Cox has spend some time on it fixing it, and after finding an IRQ bug it now seems to work just fine again on openmsx.
Additionally, he has added an option to boot from disk by running a fuzix.com file, and noted some future improvements to be made.
Indeed, very interesting... Is there any WIP disk images available for us "less involved" / "less technical" people to play with? It would be nice to have a peek, where the project is going ATM without need to do full deep dive in to code. At least on fuzix.org the bootable MSX images are still completely missing.
Where the project is going ATM without need to do full deep dive in to code. At least on fuzix.org the bootable MSX images are still completely missing.
So far the project has been about increasing the number of supported cpu and platforms, and also porting classic UNIX apps and utilities (from the 70's, etc.). So that is what you get at the moment, a bunch of apps like vi, smallC or some text adventures that run the same in a C64, a spectrum or an MSX (or many other platforms).
There are few features still not used in the msx2 port (networking, swap...), I guess eventually those will be supported but is up to contributors who also own the hardware to make drivers.
you can run on openmsx doing:
openmsx -extb MegaFlashROM_SCC+_SD -extc debugdevice -machine Panasonic_FS-A1GT -hda disk.img fuzix.ascii8.rom
and select bootdevice 1 (just type 1 when prompted)
or using a megaflashrom by flashing kernel fuzix.ascii8.rom as a regular ROM and writing the disk.img on an sdcard using some tool (like dd in linux).
Note that in this version reading from disk is a bit slow even in TurboR, this is a regression that needs to be fixed. Other than that appears to be quite stable.
If you want to build by yourself, you need a patched sdcc version that can be found here (you need to build it):
- login as root
- you need to type "shutdown" before powering off the computer, otherwise the file system will need to be checked on the next boot.
- some things you can try running on this image:
# cd /usr/games
# ./startrek
# ./advent
- It is possible to have 4 terminals selectable using CTRL+F1 - F4 but those need to be configured in /etc/inittab
- in order to run VI you need to set the terminal type first
# TERM=vt52 vi
Yeah, in theory you can port any Unix app and run it on Fuzix... but in practice the OS is limited to ~60Kb binaries at the moment, which is a shame. That's why you only see classic apps from the 70's in the Applications folder; back in the day
minicomputers had that kind of memory as well.
With a "little bit" of work it should be possible to port contemporary Unix/Linux apps and run them in some derivative version of Fuzix. I believe this would turn a TurboR with 4 or 16Mb of RAM into a machine that can run more modern software.
If you think about it, back in the day; a 486 or an early Pentium ran with only 4Mb to 16Mb... that gives an indication of the kind of software that could run on a TurboR with enough RAM, within the limits of the R800 of course.
