Greetings, everyone. As you may be aware, a long time ago I was "handed the keys" to the ELKS project. I'd like to discuss the possibility of continuing development.  I have seen a reference to the RTOS "NuttX" and discovered an exchange in which Gregory Nutt indicated ELKS and NuttX were too different in their goals. Additionally, NuttX has no i86 port, and as we all know, the hardest steps are usually the first ones. Because of these factors, I am hesitant to say "abandon ELKS and develop NuttX instead." I am, however, left with the question of duplicated efforts: what operating systems exist that do the same general thing as ELKS, and how much overlap is there? How "far" are they, in terms of overall usefulness?  I'm also becoming curious about what it takes to retarget the bcc compiler for other 8-bit and 16-bit processors (i.e. MOS 6502/65816, Zilog Z80/Z8000, Motorola 6800/68000), particularly since there is evidence in the current Dev86 bcc source code where the original compiler supported a Motorola 6809 target that has been subsequently removed. While ELKS is currently very i86-specific, it could prove very beneficial to open up the ability to target more platforms.  Finally, I'd like to ask everyone who still reads this list: considering it is the year 2011, and 8086 machines were superseded more than 20 years ago, should ELKS development continue at all, and if so, what direction should it take? (The retargeting suggestion is part of this question.)  I have taken the liberty of downloading as much ELKS-related code and materials as possible, and I am prepared to set up a Git repository for ELKS if enough interest in such a thing exists.  Thanks in advance, and I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone once more.  Jody Bruchon -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-8086" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
