How I Booted Linux On an Intel 4004 from 1971

By | September 29, 2024
Long-time Slashdot reader dmitrygr writes: Debian Linux booted on a 4-bit intel microprocessor from 1971 — the first microprocessor in the world — the 4004. It is not fast, but it is a real Linux kernel with a Debian rootfs on a real board whose only CPU is a real intel 4004 from the 1970s.

There’s a detailed blog post about the experiment. (Its title? “Slowly booting full Linux on the intel 4004 for fun, art, and absolutely no profit.”)

In the post dmitrygr describes testing speed optimizations with an emulator where “my initial goal was to get the boot time under a week…”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.