> 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.
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.
Why do you think it is "AI slop"? Isn't the author allowed to write code with Claude?
Not every project that uses AI is immediately "AI slop".
> This is a hobby project. I rely on AI to speed up the work (including the writing and maintenance of the webpage and the markdown files you see here). If you spot a mistake, you're welcome to contribute a fix in the form of a PR.
The author is inviting your hand written assembly skills to help him reduce the "slop"
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.
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.
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/
Not every project that uses AI is immediately "AI slop".
> This is a hobby project. I rely on AI to speed up the work (including the writing and maintenance of the webpage and the markdown files you see here). If you spot a mistake, you're welcome to contribute a fix in the form of a PR.
The author is inviting your hand written assembly skills to help him reduce the "slop"
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.
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.