BrickOS

BrickOS is an open-source operating system that Markus Noga created as replacement firmware for the Lego Mindstorms Robotic Invention System, and the source describes it as the first open-source software made for Lego Mindstorms robots. It was developed on Linux as a successor to the earlier environment known as LegOS, and it runs on the Hitachi H8 architecture used inside the Mindstorms brick. Programs are cross compiled with the g++ and Jack compilers, so they can be written in C, C++ or Java and run as native machine code rather than interpreted bytecode, which makes them faster than LegOS programs. The system offers dynamic loading of programs and modules, preemptive multitasking, dynamic memory management, drivers for the sensors, motors and sound of the RCX brick, POSIX semaphores and infrared packet networking through the LegOS Network Protocol. It has been used in robotics research and in university teaching of C and C++ cross compilation.