Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

Re:Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386 by drivers99 on Saturday August 08, 2026 @10:35PM (#49227896)

I might have to try it out. I have an 8088 IBM PC (my first computer) on a desk. I need to swap out some bad RAM (I've been getting Parity errors and other strange behavior), but it says it works with 256KB so I could remove the AST SixPakPlus altogether. The fully populated mother board has 256KB. (I could also unplug the MFM hard drive controller as well.) It supports CGA and VGA and I have both (the CGA is original; the VGA is an 8-bit ISA one I picked up a couple years ago). I also have a serial mouse... Right now I have one floppy disk that came with a book I re-bought recently (Peter Norton's Guide to Assembly Language) and I could back up the files from it and use that but I think I'd rather buy/find another one to use. And I need more than one disk for this anyway.

Interesting, it currently says, 'Nobody has yet written the images to 5.25" media and booted an actual XT with them.'

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Re:Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386 by jggonz on Sunday August 09, 2026 @03:35AM (#49229261)

"Author" of os8088 here.

That's no longer the case. Someone that is contributing to the project is using real hardware to validate the changes. You can check out some of the systems he tested it with here: https://www.os8088.com/hardware

The system does currently run with 256KB of RAM, and you can use some of the basic apps, but not all of them.

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Re:Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386 by paul_h on Sunday August 09, 2026 @09:48AM (#49231403)

Chris Hinsley started TaOS toward the end of the 80's .. Him sick of being asked by games industry managers to "do it again but for PC". By 1991 there was a start up, and by 1993 there were awards for his endian-independent VpAsm OS. I mention cos the tubling cube demo (two windows) would allow one to be dragged over the other without cubes slowing in their tumble at all, and without the envelope-drag-letGo-repaint effect. No stammering for the window manager. This tech was legendary and the multi-tasking was an order better than WinNT later which itself was an order better than Mac's cooperative-task-thunking. Lots of the videos of that time lost sadly, and all the source code. Chris is doing it all again, but making it harder for himself -> https://github.com/vygr/ChrysaLisp - while also using LLMs for lots of it.

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