frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

UNIX99, a UNIX-like OS for the TI-99/4A

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/380883-unix99-a-unix-like-os-for-the-ti-994a/
97•marcodiego•2h ago

Comments

glimshe•1h ago
The joy of computing still lives in the age of AI...
Zardoz84•1h ago
WoW!
b00ty4breakfast•1h ago
made me remember knightOS

https://github.com/KnightOS/KnightOS

haunter•1h ago
This is the main updated comment with the user guide and download

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/380883-unix99-a-unix-like-...

bink•46m ago
Thanks. I wasn't looking forward to browsing all those pages in the hopes of finding the source. Did they never put it up on GitHub?
MBCook•1h ago
Wow. The TI-99 is such a perfect fit for this too given the chip was designed for multi-user computing in a way other home computer chips weren’t.

All due to TI’s desire to use the same chip standards across all their machines big and small, IIRC.

jandrese•1h ago
While the CPU is a better fit than the 8 bit contemporaries, the 16kb of working memory is going to be a struggle.
MBCook•57m ago
Yeah it really was an interesting choice on their part. Makes sense as a move for TI. Not the target market.
SoftTalker•54m ago
It's cool because the registers are all in RAM, with a "workspace pointer" on the CPU pointing at where they are. This is slow, but a context switch is just changing that pointer.
jandrese•36m ago
Yep, but it lacks a MMU so memory protection and paging are going to require a lot of work. I think the only reason this is feasible at all is they're running the OS out of a ROM cartridge.
MBCook•33m ago
Did the minicomputers of the time have MMUs?

I thought UsagiElectric showed a case where his Centurion didn’t, but I may be misremembering.

jandrese•27m ago
The PDP machines that Unix was developed on had MMUs, which they needed because the 16 bit processors couldn't address the multi-megabyte address space the hardware supported.

I'm pretty sure the Centurion doesn't run Unix.

bananamogul•1h ago
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.
SoftTalker•58m ago
@UsagiElectric on YouTube has a series of videos on building a homebrew around the TMS9900 processor. Would be cool if a unix-like OS could be used on something like that, though sounds like this project is specifically targeting the TI-99/4A system.

The TI-99/4A was the first computer I owned as a teenager. I had used TRS-80s and Apple ][ at school. I eventually bought the expansion box and a couple of accessory cards (floppy disk drive, memory and RS232). It all went in the e-waste dumpster about 20 years ago during a move.

ectospheno•52m ago
I had one in grade school. Taught me the value of backups early in life. Spent all night typing in a game from a magazine. Started it without saving to tape first. It was so loud! Panicked and restarted the machine. Sadness ensued.

Replaced it with a C128-D. Didn’t get my first intel until I bought a 386 after graduating high school. Good times.

hn_acc1•50m ago
Same here - parents bought one for me in 1982, IIRC. By 1984 I had moved to Atari XL, but I'll always have a soft spot for the TI-99/4A, Extended Basic cartridge, speech synthesizer, cassette drive, etc.

My sister and I used to co-type programs from "Compute!". The times were so much simpler then..

icedchai•40m ago
The TI99/4A was my first computer when I was 7 or 8. Unfortunately, no cassette drive. As soon as I shut it off, my basic program was gone!
raddan•26m ago
The TI99/4A was also my first computer. I was about 5, and I didn’t really seriously try writing programs until I was about 8. Fortunately, since my father bought this for work, we had a large collection of peripherals, including the floppy disk drive. Unfortunately I learned the hard way why my father stopped using it: peripheral expansion bus devices were exquisitely sensitive to static shocks. I remember reeling in horror after watching hours of work just disappear from the disk drive. I suppose this was probably a good lesson to learn at an early age!
sunanda35•14m ago
Can you drop this yt channel name?
Brian_K_White•11m ago
you only get 3 guesses
buildsjets•55m ago
Does it run PARSEC? Nice shot captain!
nonamenoslogan•55m ago
HOLY COW. Thank you for this. I LOVE the Ti99/4a, its one of the first computers I ever used. I've got one up and running at home now currently and can't wait to try this.
raphar•27m ago
It's the first computer I ever programmed, I was twelve years old then. <3
raddan•23m ago
Btw, there is a lovely third party replacement for the TI99/4a video chip that lets you output VGA. It’s a major life improvement if you are seriously using it. I Dremeled my case but you can route the ribbon cable to avoid it if you’d prefer not to modify anything. Happy to send you a link if you don’t already know about it.
UncleOxidant•46m ago
So assuming one wanted to buy a used one of these (I had timex sinclairs around this time) how would one display the composite video nowdays?
jandrese•34m ago
A USB video capture device or a converter box. There are devices sold specifically to interface these old machines with modern displays. One of the more famous ones is the RetroTINK.
hunterpayne•44m ago
I learned to program on this exact hardware in the early 80s as a small child. It uses BASIC. It's hard drive was modem tones recorded to an analog audio tape. Its monitor was an analog TV. There was no mouse. The keyboard was built into the computer itself.

Flock cameras gifted by Horowitz Foundation, avoiding public oversight

https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/vegas-police-are-big-users-of-license-plate-readers-publ...
127•rurp•55m ago•36 comments

UNIX99, a UNIX-like OS for the TI-99/4A

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/380883-unix99-a-unix-like-os-for-the-ti-994a/
97•marcodiego•2h ago•27 comments

The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

https://spectrum.ieee.org/age-verification
1031•oldnetguy•7h ago•813 comments

Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/23/americans-are-destroying-flock-surveillance-cameras/
366•mikece•3h ago•229 comments

AI-powered reverse-engineering of Rosetta 2 for Linux

https://github.com/Inokinoki/attesor
10•inoki•23m ago•3 comments

Ladybird adopts Rust

https://ladybird.org/posts/adopting-rust/
958•adius•10h ago•525 comments

Show HN: PgDog – Scale Postgres without changing the app

https://github.com/pgdogdev/pgdog
140•levkk•6h ago•33 comments

SIM (YC X25) Is Hiring the Best Engineers in San Francisco

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/sim/jobs/Rj8TVRM-software-engineer-platform
1•waleedlatif1•1h ago

The challenges of porting Shufflepuck Cafe to the 8 bits Apple II

https://www.colino.net/wordpress/archives/2026/02/23/the-challenges-of-porting-shufflepuck-cafe-t...
10•homarp•1h ago•2 comments

'Viking' was a job description, not a matter of heredity: Ancient DNA study

https://www.science.org/content/article/viking-was-job-description-not-matter-heredity-massive-an...
121•bookofjoe•2d ago•95 comments

Show HN: Babyshark – Wireshark made easy (terminal UI for PCAPs)

https://github.com/vignesh07/babyshark
10•eigen-vector•1h ago•2 comments

Elsevier shuts down its finance journal citation cartel

https://www.chrisbrunet.com/p/elsevier-shuts-down-its-finance-journal
484•qsi•13h ago•90 comments

IBM Plunges After Anthropic's Latest Update Takes on COBOL

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ibm-plunges-after-anthropics-latest-update-takes-cobol
49•gradus_ad•59m ago•33 comments

A simple web we own

https://rsdoiel.github.io/blog/2026/02/21/a_simple_web_we_own.html
147•speckx•6h ago•96 comments

FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook. AI build one for me

https://vladimir.varank.in/notes/2026/02/freebsd-brcmfmac/
6•varankinv•26m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Sowbot – open-hardware agricultural robot (ROS2, RTK GPS)

https://sowbot.co.uk/
86•Sabrees•6h ago•33 comments

Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

https://magicalmushroom.com/index
320•microflash•14h ago•106 comments

Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/technology/binance-employees-iran-firings.html
256•boplicity•2h ago•114 comments

Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

https://spectrum.ieee.org/solid-state-lidar-microvision-adas
366•mhb•4d ago•493 comments

Stop Killing Games update says EU petition advances

https://videocardz.com/newz/stop-killing-games-update-says-eu-petition-advances
26•LorenDB•1h ago•3 comments

ASML unveils EUV light source advance that could yield 50% more chips by 2030

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/asml-unveils-euv-light-source-advance-that-could-yield-50-mor...
172•pieterr•4h ago•44 comments

0 A.D. Release 28: Boiorix

https://play0ad.com/new-release-0-a-d-release-28-boiorix/
325•jonbaer•4d ago•114 comments

Scent, in Silico

https://www.asimov.press/p/scent
6•surprisetalk•4d ago•0 comments

Benchmarks for concurrent hash map implementations in Go

https://github.com/puzpuzpuz/go-concurrent-map-bench
67•platzhirsch•1d ago•4 comments

The Lighthouse: How extreme isolation transforms the body and mind

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2231732-the-lighthouse-how-extreme-isolation-transforms-the-...
51•nixass•3d ago•14 comments

Generalized Sequential Probability Ratio Test for Families of Hypotheses [pdf]

https://sites.stat.columbia.edu/jcliu/paper/GSPRT_SQA3.pdf
16•luu•3d ago•4 comments

The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

https://sabrinas.space
200•montenegrohugo•7h ago•90 comments

Emulating Goto in Scheme with Continuations

https://terezi.pyrope.net/ccgoto/
38•usually•4d ago•13 comments

femtolisp: A lightweight, robust, scheme-like Lisp implementation

https://github.com/JeffBezanson/femtolisp
100•tosh•9h ago•14 comments

A lithium-ion breakthrough that could boost range and lower costs

https://www.techradar.com/vehicle-tech/hybrid-electric-vehicles/forget-solid-state-batteries-rese...
36•thelastgallon•3h ago•12 comments