Weird and Wacky Machines Running Ruby
summary
Ports and experiments target obscure hardware and reveal what actually builds and boots: collected precompiled binaries for Sega Mega Drive and X68000, but many builds depend on lost toolchains so compilation often fails; managed working Ruby on mainstream OSes (Linux, macOS, Windows, FreeBSD) but OS/2 requires an ancient EMX toolchain that is nearly impossible to find; older Ruby 1.8 ports succeed where post-Ruby 1.9 boundary refactors removed compatibility shims; modern Ruby’s ~32MB boot size clashes with 4MB-era machines, so slimming or using alternate VMs is necessary.
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chapters (14)
- 0:00Welcome to weird Ruby
- 1:55What is Ruby and its implementations
- 4:26Ruby on vintage game consoles
- 7:41Ruby history on NeWS workstations
- 13:02Compiling Ruby for old platforms
- 17:38Ruby on Sharp X68030
- 19:25Ruby on Japanese PC DOS
- 21:30Retro Ruby ports: fails and limits
- 24:42Systems that still run Ruby
- 26:06Why preserve old Ruby
- 27:51Q&A: Porting Ruby to newer systems
- 30:21Q&A: Ruby on OS/2 challenges
- 32:06Q&A: Ruby memory use old vs new
- 34:14Closing thoughts
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