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os8088 is an operating system written with AI tools in x86 16-bit assembly with an optional C/C++ app porting toolchain. It runs on anything with an x86 proces

by jggonz 28d ago

os8088 is an operating system written with AI tools in x86 16-bit assembly with an optional C/C++ app porting toolchain. It runs on anything with an x86 processor from the early 8088/8086 CPUs up to the latest CPUs. It supports CGA/Hercules + VGA. Sound Blaster, NE2000 network and MFM hard drive support is now available. We've also ported many cool apps: MOD trackers, TexPad, MS Word 1.1a (in ASM and C), CP/M 2.2 emulator with a ton of apps and games, and several ported games from the early arcade days. Run it in the browser at: https://os8088.com/demo https://os8088.com/demo Yes, the website has a lot of AI generated content. I'm working on a redesign and tooling to edit and rewrite the content by hand.

mysterydip 28d ago
Interesting project. Have you been able to try it on actual hardware yet? What’s the minimum RAM?
- nsxwolf 28d ago
  I was able to boot the 1.44MB floppy image on my PS/2, but the mouse doesn't work.
  - jggonz 28d ago
    I have serial mouse support right now (auto detected on COM1/COM2), but PS/2 mouse support is coming. Someone was even able to get it running on a PC Transporter on an Apple IIGS. One of these: https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/setting-up-a-pc-trasporter-on-a-iigs.45004/ https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/setting-up-a-pc-trasporter-on-...
- jggonz 28d ago
  Yes, some people have contributed screenshots: os8088.com/hardware 256kb is the official minimum amount of RAM. 128KB should work but that's just going to let you run the kernel and some very basic built in apps.
  - ColdStream 28d ago
    So essentially like the original Mac in 1984. ;) 128KB of RAM is just too little to run the OS and applications at the same time with any kind of performance. But once the 512KB model came along, then things started to really swing.
    - jggonz 28d ago
      Yes, it has been really interesting running into the same blockers that the engineers building early operating systems must have ran into as well.
badsectoracula 28d ago
Since you're here let me ask a question i had the last time i saw this project: how does your AI handle the ginormous SPEC.md file?[0] (last time i saw it Github was still able to display it :-P). Are you feeding the entirety of it to Claude (i guess)? Doesn't that eat pretty much all context - and considering that (AFAIK) the spec file has everything about the OS, doesn't available context space put some sort of "hard ceiling" to what you can add to the OS? [0] https://github.com/jggonz/os8088/blob/main/SPEC.md https://github.com/jggonz/os8088/blob/main/SPEC.md
- jggonz 28d ago
  This SPEC.md is more of a memory dump that it chooses to use on some tasks. I was recently thinking of either: a. splitting it into sub-spec files that can be referenced. b. getting rid of it completely to prevent the LLM from hallucinating with potentially stale information.

by jggonz 28d ago

mysterydip 28d ago

Interesting project. Have you been able to try it on actual hardware yet? What’s the minimum RAM?

nsxwolf 28d ago
I was able to boot the 1.44MB floppy image on my PS/2, but the mouse doesn't work.
- jggonz 28d ago
  I have serial mouse support right now (auto detected on COM1/COM2), but PS/2 mouse support is coming. Someone was even able to get it running on a PC Transporter on an Apple IIGS. One of these: https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/setting-up-a-pc-trasporter-on-a-iigs.45004/ https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/setting-up-a-pc-trasporter-on-...
jggonz 28d ago
Yes, some people have contributed screenshots: os8088.com/hardware 256kb is the official minimum amount of RAM. 128KB should work but that's just going to let you run the kernel and some very basic built in apps.
- ColdStream 28d ago
  So essentially like the original Mac in 1984. ;) 128KB of RAM is just too little to run the OS and applications at the same time with any kind of performance. But once the 512KB model came along, then things started to really swing.
  - jggonz 28d ago
    Yes, it has been really interesting running into the same blockers that the engineers building early operating systems must have ran into as well.

badsectoracula 28d ago

Since you're here let me ask a question i had the last time i saw this project: how does your AI handle the ginormous SPEC.md file?[0] (last time i saw it Github was still able to display it :-P). Are you feeding the entirety of it to Claude (i guess)? Doesn't that eat pretty much all context - and considering that (AFAIK) the spec file has everything about the OS, doesn't available context space put some sort of "hard ceiling" to what you can add to the OS? [0] https://github.com/jggonz/os8088/blob/main/SPEC.md https://github.com/jggonz/os8088/blob/main/SPEC.md

jggonz 28d ago
This SPEC.md is more of a memory dump that it chooses to use on some tasks. I was recently thinking of either: a. splitting it into sub-spec files that can be referenced. b. getting rid of it completely to prevent the LLM from hallucinating with potentially stale information.