[ForHackernews]

If you're interested in this topic, you might also be interested to learn about http://collapseos.org/: "It is a Forth operating system and a collection of tools and documentation with a single purpose: preserve the ability to program microcontrollers through civilizational collapse."

[wrycoder]

Fifty years ago we had teletype machines with paper tape readers/punches. This was an ideal impedance match of technologies. All the front panel switches and blinking lights on the old computers were to get a boot loader keyed in. The boot loader read the bytes from the teletype. The paper tapes stored the programs.

What is needed for the collapse scenario is the equivalent of the teletype. It can't just be another working computer acting as a terminal. It has to be something we can bootstrap to get the small CPUs lying around working.