From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:51:13 BST."
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References: <201206171720.q5HHKZSl015160@freefriends.org>
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	<1342446560.3514.133.camel@wes-HP-Pavilion-g7-Notebook-PC>
	<20120717175113.6ce22c1b@vardo.ethans.dre.am>
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2012 12:12:40 -0700
From: Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com>
Message-Id: <20120717191240.7D7B3B827@mail.bitblocks.com>
Subject: Re: [9fans] apparently nice summary of small linux pcs
Topicbox-Message-UUID: a233e938-ead7-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

On Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:51:13 BST Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@fastmail.fm>  wrote:
> Actually I've toyed with the idea of a "Plan 9 from 8-bit space". It
> would be a fun challenge, I think, and I'd be interested to find
> exactly what compromises would be needed. It may even be less of a
> challenge than writing drivers for the crap peripherals ARM SOCs always
> seem to be burdened with, but what could you do with it when it was
> done?

What would be possible is to build a general purpose
building block. Something like this:
- provide a tiny thread library
- provide 9p over USB|serial|UDP
- implement a simple 9p server framework & export a server
  side interface where one can plug in sensor/actuator
  specific routines and specify the FS layout via a string.
- implement a namespace convention for discovering
  capabilities (for example a "help/" dir)
- it should be implementable as a verilog block some day!
  may be not but imagining that keeps the design simple.

Actually it doesn't have to be 9p. It can be something
simpler.