Hacker Runs Linux on 1971 Intel 4004, Takes Nearly 5 Days to Boot

Dmitry Grinberg achieves a remarkable technical feat by emulating a MIPS R3000 processor on the ancient Intel 4004 chip.

Dmitry Grinberg, a well-known hacker, successfully booted a stripped-down version of Linux on an Intel 4004 processor from 1971.
The Intel 4004, originally designed for calculators, has only 2,600 transistors and operates at 740 kHz, making it extremely limited in functionality.
Grinberg used a MIPS R3000 emulator to bridge the hardware gap, reducing the Linux kernel size to 2.5MB to fit the processor's constraints.
The boot process initially took nearly nine days but was optimized down to 4.76 days through various tweaks and optimizations.
Grinberg's project, while largely artistic, demonstrates Linux's flexibility and the ingenuity required to run modern software on vintage hardware.