‘I gotta go to that French travel agency and book the tickets, I gotta do that today!’ thought Finn as he boarded the shuttle train to go to work. On the other hand, he had a good half hour to get to the office, a whole working day, and then he had to rush to the travel agency: there was nothing he actually needed to do there and then. He sat on a vacant seat and took out the printed manual Pat and Morgan gave him, An introduction to xywOS. He was determined to skim through it at least, but his eyes fell on the original Preface to the first edition, written by someone named consul8, who was the original author of the operating system, apparently, back in 2027. He started reading through it because he was curious about it and about the fact that it was written barely two years after the Pulse.

---

This book is a short but hopefully useful and practical introduction to xywOS, a small, free operating system for the rebirth of computing. xywOS can run on most of the processors that survived the Pulse, including the 6502, the 6800, the 6809, and the Z80 among others, thanks to the xyw virtual machine.

xyw was actually implemented at the beginning of 2025, as a hobby project of mine. I wanted to know if I could create a virtual machine and an assembler for a programming language inspired both by traditional 8-bit assembly and stack-based languages like Forth. At the time, retrocomputing was popular among programmers, who enjoyed experiencing what it was like to program with the technologies and constraints of 1980s and 1990s computers… I wonder what happened to those programmers. I wonder if they are happier now that they have to program with those technologies and constraints not as a hobby, but as a necessity.

xyw was inspired by Uxn, a small virtual machine but often referred to as an emulator able to run rom files containing assembled programs written in Uxntal, a stack-based language with assembly-like semantics. Uxn was, however, focused on creating games and programs with a graphical user interface, while I wanted something focused on terminals and text-based programs that could run on early computers and even pocket computers like the Sharp PCs from the 1980s.

Little did I know that such a hobby project would have become the foundation on which to build something actually useful, and essential, someday!

At the end of the 2020s, xywOS evolved into a rudimentary operating system that could actually run on hardware that survived the Pulse. I wanted to provide a basic but good-enough file system and ways to load and execute programs to systems built on 8-bit processors with just a small LCD or CRT screen and a keyboard. xywOS has nothing to do with complex operating systems like Linux or BSD: it is probably close to CP/M, but I still hope it can be useful to you.

And above all, xywOS is and always will be free. Its code is meant to be shared, not sold, and everyone is welcome to contribute to it, like a true pre-Pulse open source project.

Despite what our governments and corporations are telling us these days, you have the right to program, to tinker with a computer, to repair it when it goes wrong, to improve it. I hope xywOS can help with all that, and teach our new generation zero to not be afraid of computers, but to learn how to use them for the betterment of humanity.

---

“Interesting reading, Finn… but perhaps you may want to get ready and put it away now,” said a voice right next to him. Finn turned his head right and saw Eric, his massive, red-haired colleague, the hardware depot clerk who worked with Jarrod, that he met in a completely different context.

Finn quickly put his printed manual in his briefcase and attempted a slightly embarrassed smile.

“Ah, also forgot to tell you… since you mentioned you were interested in the topic, you should definitely check out St. Joseph’s Church down in Wilton one of these evenings… ask for Father Joshua.”

Finn looked at him very confused for a couple of seconds, as he never told Eric anything about religion or churches… then he understood and thanked him for the suggestion. Was that an underground hideout or something? Was Father Joshua the custodian of some forbidden tech? He made a mental note of the place, which he actually knew very well, and thought that he was going to check it out, but not that day, because he definitely had to book the tickets for France.

“Actually Finn, can I borrow that book? I’ll give it back to you one of these days, okay?” There was an unexpected haste in Eric’s voice, but Finn knew better to ask why, and just gave him the book. The shuttle was about to stop at headquarters anyway.

“I gotta grab a quick latte at the café or I won’t be able to function right, but you go ahead… have a great day!”

Again, Finn acted as if the last five minutes of conversation had been just perfectly ordinary, got off the shuttle, and noticed that there was a short queue to get in the big EDS building. A couple of EDS security guards were standing at the entrance, stopping everyone.

“What’s going on?” asked Finn to the last person in the queue.

“Random inspection, they said. They were bound to start doing that. They are checking for unlicensed devices and other illegal material on programming and the likes. Those DigiPunks are everywhere after all, am I right?” Finn just nodded in approval, while a shiver went down his spine: did Eric know about this? Did he just save him from being questioned or even arrested? It certainly looked like that. How incredibly naïve of him to think he could just bring that book to headquarters!

As he waited for his turn to go through, he looked over the shoulder of the person in front of him who was reading a copy of the Examiner, and his eye noticed a rather worrying article:

Those cheesy DigiCoin countdown ads. Finn wasn’t too surprised, but he didn’t like the way that the whole thing was going down. Metal detectors and inspections before getting into work, then what? Maybe private houses like in Italy? He had to be more careful, and had to talk to his sister about it as well, since she now owned an illegal device. Also, she must feel somewhat proud that the whole DigiPunk thing that she made up was sticking: authorities started using it as a derogatory term, and underground members loved it because of that. He actually really liked it himself; it had a nice rebel ring to it.

After five minutes, he noticed that Eric joined the queue as well, and he didn’t have his xywOS book with him: he must have left it in the café or given it to someone to avoid problems during the inspection. Indeed, the guards were also doing random briefcase checks every few people who went through. Employees were getting in without any issue, until suddenly one of the guards found something slightly unusual in the backpack of a young Junior System Configurator that Finn knew:

“What is this? C programming? If it doesn’t specify a valid post-Pulse standardization code, it is considered illegal. Pre-pulse programming books must be confiscated immediately; you shouldn’t even own something like this!” said one of the guards, referring to a fairly big volume that the lad was carrying in his backpack.

“I just wanted to understand the history of C programming, from the early years… I feel that it would give me a fresh perspective and make me a better system configurator,” said the young lad in an attempt to justify himself. The guards called over a third person, who introduced himself as part of the EDS technology preservation team, who objected to the explanation on the basis that all pre-Pulse books about programming should be considered at risk for censorship, as they may contain advice that would be harmful to our current systems. He then asked the young man for his service number and imputed it into a small handheld device, saying that he would be notified on the exact nature of his disciplinary action.

Finn was surprised about all that, especially considering that he distinctly remembered seeing many pre-Pulse programming books like that one at his parents’ place. He grew up with them and even skimmed through them in his youth. Times were changing after all, and it looked like Ireland was going to join other European countries in an absurd hunt for pre-Pulse tech and anything related to it.

Finn’s morning at work was fairly uneventful. As usual, he was quite fast at configuring his units and was actually well over his daily quotas in the afternoon when something unusual happened.

** Retrieving configuration parameters...
** Configuration 66T1W5 received.
** Proceed with unit assembly.
** 6502/a2 Microprocessor detected.
** Serial Number: CPU-A24682-IE398
** Validating... OK.
** 28C256W1 EEPROM detected.
** Serial Number: EEP-U37882-IE856
** Validating... OK.
** K3 Digital-Right-Enforcment chip detected.
** Serial Number: DRE-K33189-US278
** Validating... ERROR.
!! Component exceeds import regulation quotas.
!! Supervisory authorization T8 required.

Finn was surprised. He had similar errors come up before, but they never required a T8 authorization to proceed with validation. He had a look at the package that contained the DRE chip, and he noticed that some tape seemed to have been intentionally covering the name of the company that produced it. He carefully removed it and was surprised to see that name come up again:

DigiTech Corp. — Made in USA

Now things seemed clearer, although highly unusual: government-funded companies like EDS were allowed to import some components from abroad, but there were specific quotas that had been established as part of the Lyon Accords. Import control became very strict after that, and any violation had to be reported. Exceptions existed, but were supposed to be very rare.

After a couple of minutes, Sarah, his supervisor, arrived, notably concerned about the situation. She looked at Finn’s screen and extracted his DigiCard to insert hers.

“You can take the rest of the day Finn. I’ll sort this out and take over from here. You are well over your daily quotas anyway! You deserve it.”

Finn just felt relieved that he wasn’t in any trouble. He had been trying to go a bit over quota also because his vacation was coming up, but he didn’t want his monthly score to go down too much because of that. He was glad of the extra time off, especially because he wouldn’t have had to rush to go to the French travel agency for the tickets!

As Finn got off the tram in Pembroke Street, he started looking around for the French travel agency that was supposed to be somewhere there. Sure enough, he immediately saw a sign across the road that read, in big white cursive letters over a burgundy-red background:

That must have been it. He grabbed the polished, Eiffel Tower-shaped brass door handle and got inside. A feeble chime rang as the door opened, alerting the three agents inside. A middle-aged, very tall man with wavy salt-and-pepper hair and a really small mustache on a perfectly-shaven face immediately stood up and greeted the potential customer, while two women, a thirty-something, rather thin but tidy-looking brunette with thick secretarial glasses and a more flamboyant, slightly oversized, more mature version of the younger one, kept typing on their small humming terminals, barely lifting their eyelids to see who disrupted their work.

“Bonsoir, Monsieur. Je vous en prie, entrez. En quoi puis-je vous être utile?” said the agent.

Finn didn’t expect that. He knew Italian from talking with his parents at home, but he never really studied other foreign languages, and therefore didn’t quite understand what the person said to him, except bonsoir. He presumed he just greeted him and replied after a few seconds, almost apologizing for speaking in English.

“Bonsoir, I would like to purchase some train tickets and accommodation for my sister and me. We are planning to visit France on our way to Italy next week…”

The man took a closer look at Finn, trying to guess whether the young man could even afford half of the things he was talking about. As if he needed an extra fraction of a second to translate into French in his head, he replied with a comically strong French accent:

“Mais oui, of course, that can be arranged, with advance payments, oui? Mais why why WHY would you want to bother yourself with l'Italie? France has everything for a young man like you, il n'y a pas besoin of the crossing of the Alps! Asseyez-vous, s'il vous plaît. Je suis Gaspard, et vous êtes?”

Said Gaspard, pointing at a chair in front of his desk, quite annoyed at the thought of Finn crossing the Alps to go to Italy but at the same time trying to be courteous enough to gain a sale. As he turned back to go to sit down himself, he hastily gazed at the younger woman who immediately stood up, grabbed a notepad and a pen, and ran to stand next to his desk, ready to take notes.

Finn explained that they already had tickets for a packet ship to go to La Havre for Saturday (something that seemed to instantly annoy Gaspard, who clearly wanted to provide a full service to get to France as well), and that they needed to get to Paris, where they would stay for two days and then head over to Lyon. He decided not to mention any crossing of the Alps at that point, hoping that he could at least get Gaspard to sort out that part of the journey.

“Oui, oui, makes perfect sense. Train all the way, and a very popular tour, for sure. Celine, did you get all that?“ inquired Gaspard, checking that his young assistant had written everything down.

“Yes, papa,” acknowledged the girl, causing her father to get even more annoyed about her disclosing that they were related than when he learnt that Finn wanted to cross France to get to Italy.

Gaspard asked if Finn had any preference for the area where they wanted to stay, and he quickly requested a hotel near Notre Dame, as he remembered that they were supposed to deliver their “small package” somewhere near the famous cathedral, based on what was marked in the travel guide they got from Kathleen.

Gaspard opened a big book and started searching for something, presumably hotels.

“Mais oui, c'est bon, c'est bon. Voilà!_ So you will be in La Havre by Sunday evening. You need a hotel there for a night, Hotel Le Gare in Rue Haudry could be good…“ he mumbled as Celine kept scribbling. "Then, for the next day on Monday… Le train to Rouen , and then to Paris. Two nights at the Hotel Saint-Germain in Rue des Écoles in the Latin Quarter near Notre Dame, oui… then Lyon! One night only, oui? Parce que, parce que… then you want to go away, oui? Très bien, sure. Ok…” he kept looking through the big hotel directory “aha! Hotel Gare de Lyon in Rue Parrot, near the station, for sure, so you can escape, oui? And that would be on Wednesday the fourteenth. Voilà!”

He then turned to his daughter and said, briskly, “Apporte l’itinéraire à ta mère, s’il te plaît. Trains et hôtel — qu’elle le mette au propre et l’imprime.”

The girl nodded and turned back, heading to the older woman who was sitting in the back, staring at a terminal. Finn couldn’t help but notice that she was wearing really high stilettos and a rather short miniskirt. Shorter than he was used to, so he couldn’t help but stare a little bit as she walked in the opposite direction, in a perfectly straight line, almost as if she was on a catwalk.

“Beautiful girl, oui?” said Gaspard as Finn started blushing and started staring forcefully at his own notepad.

Celine bent over the other desk and started mumbling something to the other agent, who definitely had to be her mother, as she was literally an older copy of herself, and the older woman started typing into her terminal very, very fast. She must have been used to typing into computers since before the Pulse, no doubt. After a few minutes, Celine was marching back to her father’s desk with a freshly printed, itemized, and priced itinerary, which she presented to Finn with a little, almost embarrassed smile.

Finn tried hard to focus on the printed piece of paper instead of… everything else (Celine was indeed a bit of a distraction), and examined the itinerary and the charges for each item, above all. Overall, it was about £82 for the two of them, including fees and taxes. Not exactly cheap, but still within what Fae and him budgeted. He then asked how he was to proceed, if he could pay the amount and get tickets or when he would get confirmations of the bookings.

“Mais oui, payment in full, cash. And confirmation… well, at this time of day it would probably take about one hour. You can wait here or come back, if you prefer."

Finn was surprised. He thought it was going to take days to arrange all that. As he counted the banknotes and gave them to Gaspard, he asked how that was possible. Gaspard’s eyes lit up with pride and patriotism.

“Ahhh, ce n'est pas magique, c'est le Nouveau Minitel” he said, pointing to a big poster on the wall on his right.

The poster displayed two terminals connected to each other by a glowing green cable, with some indistinguishable words on the screen. The terminals were placed above a map of France, conveying the image of a digitally connected nation.

Gaspard counted the money and signaled something to his wife, who started typing on her terminal again, presumably to process the tickets and bookings into the system for validation and confirmation. Then he started explaining about Nouveau Minitel to Finn, who was genuinely interested to hear about this very much French digital wonder.

Minitel, actually sold and marketed as Teletel back in the 80s when it was first available, was a nationwide network that predated the World Wide Web in France, and was extremely successful for about twenty years, when the Internet eventually made it obsolete, although it is reported that the service was formally shut down only in 2012.

Back then, the state had subsidized entirely the price of the terminals, which were basically given free (technically rented) to the whole population in France, in an effort to drive adoption of the service and most importantly increase usage of the national phone lines that it was relying on to function. The services offered by the network were obviously text-based, and ranged from newspapers to phone directories to chatrooms… it was even possible to make digital purchases, typically debited as extra costs on the phone bill.

A few years after the Pulse hit, the French government saw an obvious opportunity to reboot the project, as the nation was in desperate need of a way to be connected again, both digitally and emotionally. By the mid-2030s, the French government decided that a single, state-owned company, Société des Systèmes Logiques (often abbreviated as SSL) was to make Nouveau Minitel a reality. They refurbished a lot of the old terminals that were still largely available, they built many new ones using 8-bit processors and other chips that survived the Pulse, and gave them to the population, once again, “for free”. Nouveau Minitel terminals are now in every home in France, in every office, and even overseas, as Gaspar pointed out. They are given in perpetual lease for a small fee and every French citizen is now digitally connected to their Nation.

Everything can be done on Minitel, from booking train tickets and hotels to chatting with friends and family, ordering food deliveries, paying fines, buying subscriptions, accessing premium digital content… Minitel is the pulsating digital hearth of France, constantly pumping data (and money) throughout the nation and beyond.

Gaspard went into a lot more detail on how the network worked and all the different types of services that were available, until Finn decided to interrupt him and asked a fairly obvious question:

“So couldn’t you book me a train from Lyon to Turin through Minitel then?”

It was a good question, that probably had a fairly obvious answer, but Gaspard stopped in silence for a moment. That was actually the only thing that he couldn’t do.

“Non. C'est pas possible! I cannot book a ticket to go to another country from outside of France! It’s not allowed.”

Finn didn’t quite understand the logic of that. He couldn’t figure out if Gaspard genuinely could not do it, or simply didn’t want to. The fact that he was obviously trying to think of a solution made him think that for some reason really that was something he couldn’t do even if he wanted to.

“Mmmm. BUT! Accès Minitel Invité! Of course! Voilà”

He looked at Celine and she immediately understood and came back with a small pile of smart cards that were still packaged in transparent plastic. She discretely blew off some dust from the small package and gave it to her father.

Gaspard explained to Finn that he could purchase some sort of metered guest access to Minitel, that would have given him the possibility to check for train times and maybe even booked for a train to Turin. He also explained that guest access was somewhat restricted and that he may have had to ask for assistance from a French citizen to complete the purchase, but he swore, it was definitely worth the money, as he would have been able to access the network, almost like a citizen.

Finn wasn’t too convinced about this, but on the other hand, he also wanted to be able to pass as an ordinary tourist complying with all the quirkiness of that very proud nation, so he decided to purchase one of the cards.

“Très bon. We have cards 10, 25, or 50 Francs."

Finn asked for the 10 francs one, and ended up paying about £16, by the time he added all fees and commissions. Which reminded him: Francs! They didn’t really have any local currency. He asked Gaspard, and he started another long explanation on how he could maybe buy a few of those Minitel cards and how that would have worked out almost as cheap as exchanging pounds at an exchange office, and how convenient it would have been to have been able to use his Minitel credit from anywhere in France to get Francs, conveniently delivered to his hotel in a matter of hours upon completing his digital purchase…

After hearing all that, Finn decided he’d risk it with a more traditional currency exchange office, or even considered asking his newly acquired DigiPunk friends, that definitely seemed less shady than a French businessman. He then thanked the family for the helpful services, and Gaspard insisted on getting up and giving him a kiss on the cheek, while shaking his hand wishing him luck in his home country. The wife and even Celine then gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, which made Finn rather uncomfortable.

But at least it was done. Voilà, one less thing to worry about.