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Os8088.com: IBM XT OS now has a Browser, CP/M 2.2 with Z80 core and MS Word 1.1a

37 pointsby jggonzyesterday at 9:11 PM24 commentsview on HN

Comments

Sohcahtoa82yesterday at 11:21 PM

> Opening an encrypted connection means one very large multiplication. On a 4.77 MHz 8088 it takes minutes.

I've done it.

It took a lot of loop unrolling and optimizations in order to get the TLS 1.2 handshake to complete before the server timed out the connection, but I've successfully gotten it to work, and with only 384 KB of RAM.

The implementation doesn't verify the server certificate (would certainly take too long), but it successfully performs an HTTPS request to Wikipedia as a proof-of-concept.

One of these days I'll clean up the code and post it here.

erminpouryesterday at 9:42 PM

Yay, I guess? It's impressive that AI can build something like this, but do you really understand how all the components work?

AI is really good an taking what we already know and producing something that works, but what about new innovations?

With all that said, this is still pretty cool.

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Telemakhosyesterday at 10:41 PM

So, this is less a technical than an aesthetic question—why does it look like an old Macintosh? I think I would have thought of GEOS [0] before Macintosh. There's also Windows 1.0 and 2.0.

Why 3.5" floppy drive icons instead of a 5.25"? The images of the OS running on hardware [1] have mostly 5.25" drives.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system) [1] https://os8088.com/hardware/

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jggonzyesterday at 9:11 PM

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

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.

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stuaxoyesterday at 10:35 PM

It took me a moment to realise it's actually word 1.1a, since the source was related.

anthktoday at 12:38 AM

Also, Tristam Island for the Z-Machine:

https://github.com/hlabrand/tristam-island

You can just transcript the feeliest to plain text. If you have an Inform6 compiler nearby, just compile the game with the 'big' flags to get the "complete" Z3 version. It has the same text as the v5 one, and it will run much faster under a 8088/8086.

For a Zorkian adventure, just get Spiritwrak.

anthktoday at 12:36 AM

A gopher client would be easier and no AI needed as the protocol it's trivial to parse. You have sites from gopher://magical.fish to gopher://floodgap.org and gopher://sdf.org (and, as a plus, you can read finger services).