Is it possible to use unix or linux for an 80286 machine (or any machine without a memory page mechanism)

Question

Is it possible to have a Unix OS for a machine 80286 (or any machine without a mechanism with paged memory, but with segmented memory)?

80286 is a processor without TLBs, page tables; only with segmented virtual memory and segmented memory protection.

Is it possible to have Linux on such a machine?

UPD: the processor is very old, so I ask only historical versions, and not ultramodern Linux 2.6.42.11 or Solaris 13 or FreeBSD 10 or ...

Answer 1

Zack user says that Xenix (based on the original UNIX) is able to run on 80286:

, Unixes, 80286 - Xenix - , -, , .

, FAQ Xenix http://www.uni-giessen.de/faq/archiv/sco-xenix/msg00000.html

QA1... /AT , SCO Xenix/286 .

, unix /AT (80286), ( Unix-, ).

http://www.deinmeister.de/x86modes.htm 80286 , ( 80386).

Answer 2

Linux/Microcontroller (μClinux) - Linux (MMU).

ELKS.

- MMU UNIX (, fork mmap) .

Answer 3

Linux 486 . . , 386- 2.4.x, 286- .

Answer 4

. Linux 386, 386- . MINIX, , 386 ( 286), 286- .

Answer 5

Not sure how interested you are in programming it (if at all), but I played with the OpenCourseWare class from MIT some time ago and they had a Minix version that they ported to x86 (not sure if it was just for 386+ or no and can no longer find the link). Anyway, if you're interested, you can check it out here: MIT OpenCourseWare Operating System Engineering