Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to 1.5kb Microkernel for Ben Eater's 6502 Computer
Micro Kernel / Bootloader for Ben Eater's 6502 Computer - janroesner/sixty5o2
This is a microkernel operating system designed for Ben Eater's 6502 computer kit, taking up only 1.5 kilobytes of memory. It provides core system functions for the 6502 single-board computer, which is a hands-on… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. 1.5kb Microkernel for Ben Eater's 6502 Computer launched in 2020; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1VB
2021 · tejotron.com · its alternatives →
- 2
This project contains no code from Linux, BSD, Minix, or any other OS. Everything up until this point is written entirely from scratch, including a pure microkernel (that only implements multiprocessor priority scheduling, memory management, and interprocess communication), a work-in-progress implementation of the standard C library, and a variety of servers that provide drivers and other essential OS functionality. At the time of writing this post, the servers provide drivers for the keyboard, NVMe SSDs (that works on real hardware), a Unix-like virtual file system (with a single root…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3
Sixty5o2▲6A mini operating system for Ben Eater's 6502 computer
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4
A fast, rootless sandbox and virtual resource runtime for any workload, including untrusted and AI-generated code. Daemonless: a real, kernel-enforced container in ~3.5 ms from an OCI image, out of one static binary - getkern/kern
Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5
Micro Displays for Raspberry Pi . Contribute to igbit/micro-displays development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6
Yet another 6502 emulator that one day dreams of being an Atari 2600. - haldean/x6502
2013 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7
Minos2 is a micro-kernel OS. Contribute to minosproject/minos2 development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8
Hi! me and my friends together built an 8 bit CPU implemented in Logisim purely from scratch. The control unit of this system does not implement the generic microcode ROM or any kind of RAM. This was made purely from discrete logic gates and coded the system to run different programs. key features: Custom 16-instruction Harvard ISA, 8-bit fixed format, 4 general purpose registers Hardwired control unit built entirely from AND/OR gate logic matrix Dual-phase clocking to eliminate race conditions Bootstrap Control Unit that cold-boots via ROM-to-RAM transfer Early-exit conditional…
Jun 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 9
I pretty much always have a kernel project going on, and have been that way for decades. Over the past couple of years, that's been Anos, which has gotten further along than any of my previous hobby kernels, supporting IPC, multitasking, SMP (x86-64 only right now) and running on real hardware. LLMs (mostly Claude Code) have been used during development, but I learned early on that it's not _great_ at code at this level, so I've restricted its use to mostly documentation and tests. There's _a little_ AI code in the user space, but I have a strict "no AI code" rule in the kernel itself. I…
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10
The core question: how did HP's scientific calculators actually work at the gate level? That rabbit hole led to building one from scratch. The architectural decision everything else follows from: a decimal calculator should store numbers as BCD — one decimal digit per 4-bit nibble. A standard byte-oriented CPU (Z80, 6502) fights that layout constantly. So I designed a small custom CPU in Verilog where 4 bits is the natural data width and memory is nibble addressable. What the project covers: - Custom CPU: Harvard architecture, 12-bit ISA, 8-state execution FSM, hardware stack guard with a…
May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 11TA
1. Single universal binary, that can be natively executed on every hardware platform Mac OS X was made for (32/64 bit, PowerPC/x86/AppleSilicon). 2. Minimalistic gadget-style design. If launched as a tool, there is no menubar, no dock icon, no nothing, just the clock window. 3. Support for hidpi and dark mode for environments, that have them. 4. Window title bar for moving the window with a mouse, and a handle to resize it (latter for OS versions, that have it). 5. Can be easily ported to GNUStep and thus other OSes (sources under GPLv3). 6. Simple Makefile build system.
2022 · tycho.sytes.net · its alternatives →
- 12
This is my operating system that I've been working for the past 2 years. All of the code is written exclusively by me except from ported software. banan-os has a monolithic kernel targeting x86 (i686) and x86_64 architectures. The project consists of bootloader, kernel and userspace libraries (libc, libGUI, libFont, ...). It also uses my custom C++ standard library partly based on stdc++. Currently I have basic TTY and GUI environment with some of the basic UNIX utilities like cp, ls and stat. I have basic support for USB (keyboard/mouse/storage), disks (NVMe, AHCI), custom…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 13
Hi there! I've been on-and-off working on TacOS for a few months, which follows some UNIX-derived concepts (exec/fork, unix-style VFS, etc) and is now able to run a port of Doom, with a fairly small amount of modifications, using my from-scratch libc. The performance is actually decent compared to what I expected. Very interested to hear your thoughts. Thank you!
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14
Yes, this includes the MBR and partition boot sector. The partition table is modeled as a class hierarchy. Second stage loads a kernel from a FAT32 file. I'm normally a C programmer, but for a work project, I recently revisited C++, a language that I had an on-again-off-again relationship over the years. I did this as a fun training exercise on the side to get familiar with the language again, but obsessed a bit and kind of overshot the target. I thought the result might be of interest to someone.
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15
Shuru is a lightweight sandbox that spins up Linux VMs on macOS using Apple's Virtualization.framework. Boots in about a second on Apple Silicon, and everything is ephemeral by default. There's a checkpoint system for when you do want to persist state, and sandboxes run without network access unless you explicitly allow it. Single Rust binary, no dependencies. Built it for sandboxing AI agent code execution, but it works well for anything where you need a disposable Linux environment.
Feb 2026 · shuru.run · its alternatives →
- 16MO
2016 · minocacorp.com · its alternatives →
- 17H1
This is a 16bit CPU+Minicomputer from pure 74 series logic. It has user/kernel modes, virtual memory, prioritized IRQ's and DMA. It has a full C compiler and a unix-like OS. It's still in development.
2023 · sol-1.org · its alternatives →
- 18
A low power 1U Raspberry Pi cluster server for inexpensive colocation. - pawl/raspberry-pi-1u-server
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19
A "living" Linux process with no memory. Contribute to izabera/zeromaps development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20
I wanted to see how fast an isolated code sandbox could start if I never had to boot a fresh VM. So instead of launching a new microVM per execution, I boot Firecracker once with Python and numpy already loaded, then snapshot the full VM state. Every execution after that creates a new KVM VM backed by a `MAP_PRIVATE` mapping of the snapshot memory, so Linux gives me copy-on-write pages automatically. That means each sandbox starts from an already-running Python process inside a real VM, runs the code, and exits. These are real KVM VMs, not containers: separate guest kernel, separate guest…
Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 21
(sorry about double posting, I forgot to put Show HN in front in the original https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43863689 thread) Hey all, As a follow up to my relatively successful series in x86 Assembly of last year[1], I started making an OS that fits in a boot sector. I am purposefully not doing chain loading or multi-stage to see how much I can squeeze out of 510bytes. It comes with a file system, a shell, and a simple process management. Enough to write non-trivial guest applications, like a text editor and even some games. It's a lot of fun! It comes with an SDK and…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22
A Simple Unix-like operating system. Contribute to ozkl/soso development by creating an account on GitHub.
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 23
Turing Pi is a compact ARM cluster that provides a secure and scalable compute in the edge. It is designed to make web-scale edge computing easier for developers.
2020 · turingpi.com · its alternatives →
- 24
Simple demo illustrating remanence of data in RAM (see Cold boot attack) using a Raspberry Pi. Loads many images of the Mona Lisa into RAM and recovers after powering off/on again. - anfractuosity/ramrecovery
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- Virtual breadboard in the browser, inspired by Ben Eater's 6502 alternatives
- My microkernel-based OS built from scratch now has basic Unix commands alternatives
- Sixty5o2 alternatives
- Kern – container and resource runtime in a 1.5 MB binary, no daemon alternatives
- Raspberry Pi 400 with a $2 IPS 240x240 micro display alternatives
- I made an easy-to-understand 6502 emulator in pure C alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →