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CUS: Completely Useless System

Introduction

The Completely Useless System (CUS) is a hypothetical computer built around the equally-hypothetical Completely Useless Processor (CUP) CPU. It is a back-to-basics hobby-project that I started with the primary goal of relearning some of the basics of systems programming and computer architecture that are useful as a computer programmer.

Hardware

Since this is a self-education project and since I am not a hardware engineer, the hypothetical hardware-peripherals surrounding CUP are somewhat-idealized abstractions of real-world hardware. Hardware in the real world (and standards to interact with them) are usually products of historical accidents, industry politics, business deals among companies, etc. I am not interested in all that, not at the moment anyway, so I am eliding all the complexities of having to simulate such hardware.

So CUS would have the following simulated peripherals to work with:

  • M MiB of RAM (M is 1 by default, but is configurable).
  • N MB of disk-space (depends on the size of the input disk-image).
  • a display-adapter with 1024x768 pixels at 32-bpp (no 3D-acceleration).
  • a 104-key US English keyboard.
  • a three-button mouse with a scroll-wheel.

Yes, this is ridiculously-anemic, even by the standards of desktops twenty years ago, but this is all I need for my purposes at the moment. It also helps to keep the system-requirements of the simulator quite modest as an added bonus.

NOTE: In the current implementation of the simulator, only the RAM is simulated. I will slowly add support for the other peripherals over time.