Systems and corresponding methods include a system having an operating system based wholly around a protocol stack, such as a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) stack. The system may include a central processing unit (CPU) including the operating system embedded therein, and a network interface coupled with a network and the CPU. The network may be the Internet. The operating system is fundamentally a state machine. The kernel of the operating system is fundamentally just a protocol stack for communicating with one or more devices of the network via the network interface. The protocol stack may be a TCP/IP protocol stack, UDP/IP stack or combinations thereof. A chip may be provided that includes the TCP/IP stack state machine-based operating system embedded in a CPU. The resultant chip may be ultra low power, miniscule in size, and IP-centric.