The Register: Give him a hand: Dev publishes 25-year-old Palm OS tools to GitHub. “A small but active community of retro computing enthusiasts is working to keep Palm OS alive, and a developer who recently became aware of their existence has just handed them a treasure trove of code he had no idea was still useful. Swedish developer Aaron Ardiri published around a gigabyte of Palm OS […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/10/17/give-him-a-hand-dev-publishes-25-year-old-palm-os-tools-to-github-the-register/#vintageoperatingsystems — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #vintageoperatingsystems, aggregated by home.social.
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Spotted in my RSS feeds: Defrag98, a Windows 98 defrag simulation. I would be very concerned if my hard drive had ever sounded like this simulation, but I like the defrag part.
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/09/09/remember-when-you-had-to-defrag-a-hard-drive-defrag98/ -
Hackster: Andrew Warkentin’s Virtual OS Museum Collects 174GB of Ready-to-Use Vintage Operating Systems. “Developer and vintage computing historian Andrew Warkentin has released the most exhaustive collection of operating systems you could imagine, all ready to run in a virtual machine: the Virtual OS Museum.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/25/hackster-andrew-warkentins-virtual-os-museum-collects-174gb-of-ready-to-use-vintage-operating-systems/ -
The Register: Microsoft opens door to the past by releasing 86-DOS and PC-DOS 1.00. “Antiques code show Microsoft has released the source for another of its relics. This time, it’s 86-DOS 1.00 getting the open source treatment, and a whole lot more for retro enthusiasts. The release comes a year after Microsoft set the source for MS-DOS 4.0 free, but it includes a lot more than just the bones […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/01/the-register-microsoft-opens-door-to-the-past-by-releasing-86-dos-and-pc-dos-1-00/ -
Tom’s Hardware: Developer’s 1994 Linux desktop recreation runs in your browser as a modern web app — open-source project brings old-school CDE interface back from the dead and features classic 90s web browser, text editor, and more. “Posted as an open-source project on GitHub under the GPL license, but accessible via its own website, the project has faithfully recreated the appearance of a […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/03/03/toms-hardware-developers-1994-linux-desktop-recreation-runs-in-your-browser-as-a-modern-web-app-open-source-project-brings-old-school-cde-interface-back-from-the-dead-and-features-class/ -
Tom’s Hardware: You can log into 28 vintage computer systems in your browser for free, thanks to the Interim Computer Museum — Experience legendary OSes, architectures, programming languages, and games. “The Interim Computer Museum (ICM) and SDF.org have made 28 vintage computer systems accessible online for free. There’s a plethora of old but gold – some legendary – systems available, so […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/02/25/toms-hardware-you-can-log-into-28-vintage-computer-systems-in-your-browser-for-free-thanks-to-the-interim-computer-museum-experience-legendary-oses-architectures-programming-languages/ -
How-To Geek: 52 years later, UNIX V4 has been rediscovered and digitized. “For decades, there were no known copies of UNIX Fourth Edition, with only some source code and manuals surviving to the present day. That changed when a nine-track tape reel containing UNIX V4 was discovered in a storage room at the University of Utah’s Kahlert School of Computing. The tape was delivered to the Computer […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/25/how-to-geek-52-years-later-unix-v4-has-been-rediscovered-and-digitized/ -
The Register: Legacy Update expands archive of vanished Microsoft downloads. “Legacy Update has for years been a tremendously useful site and tool for those wanting to keep older versions of Windows alive and in active use. The site has updated its archive of files that Microsoft used to make available for free download in the official Download Center, but has in its finite wisdom removed.”
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TechSpot: Classic 3D Maze screensaver from Windows 95 is now fully playable. “The original 3D Maze allowed a ‘player’ to navigate through a randomly generated maze, which impressed many users experiencing Windows 95 for the first time. Earlier this year, a programmer decided to turn the tool into a fully playable game – a task that proved surprisingly straightforward.”
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Tom’s Hardware: DOSBox Pure Unleashed is ready for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers after five years in development — enhanced standalone release no longer restricted to being a RetroArch core. “Other features of DOSBox Pure Unleashed, like the ability to run games directly from ZIP archives, support for Voodoo graphics emulation up to 4K/UHD, and using MIDI synths and SoundFonts, are also […]
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Digital Preservation at Cambridge: Floppy Disks, Forgotten Systems and Fragile Knowledge: Insights from the Retro Computing Community. “As part of the Future Nostalgia project, a series of interviews were conducted with members of the retro computing community. These conversations highlighted not only the deeply technical expertise of the interviewees, but also personal stories and experiences […]
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Boing Boing: Play with a web replica of the Apple Lisa’s GUI. “Lisa GUI is a web-based model of the Apple Lisa’s graphical user interface. Predating the original Macintosh by a year, it introduced so much that we associate with it, from the high-resolution 1-bit aesthetic to user-interface standards that persist to this day. Andrew Yaros, owner of a real Lisa 2/10, created the replica.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/14/boing-boing-play-with-a-web-replica-of-the-apple-lisas-gui/
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Boing Boing: Site has all the classic MacOS themes you could ever want. “The Mac Themes Garden showcases more than 3,000 themes for the classic MacOS. Remember when it was easy? There’s an index of authors, a search so you can find whatever dimly-remembered one you had on your Bondi Blue G3 in 1998, and an explanation from curator Damien Erambert.”
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Hackaday: LLM Ported To The C64, Kinda. “[ytm] did the hard work of porting the Llama 2 model to the most popular computer ever made. Of course, as you might expect, the ancient 8-bit machine doesn’t really have the stones to run an LLM on its own. You will need one rather significant upgrade, in the form of 2 MB additional RAM via a C64 REU.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2025/05/04/hackaday-llm-ported-to-the-c64-kinda/
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Hackaday: The Evertop: A Low-Power, Off-Grid Solar Gem. “Designed by [ericjenott], hacker with a love for old-school computing and survivalist flair, this machine emulates 1980s PCs, runs DOS, Windows 3.0, and even MINIX, and stays powered for hundreds of hours. It has a built-in solar panel and 20,000mAh of battery, basically making it an old-school dream in a new-school shell.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/28/the-evertop-a-low-power-off-grid-solar-gem-hackaday/
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Lifehacker: This Free App Brings Back the Windows 2000, XP, or Vista Taskbars. “OK, you might not share my passion for the Windows XP taskbar, which is fine (I guess). But maybe you miss the simple grey aesthetic of Windows 2000, or the comforting orb of Vista. Whatever your taskbar preference, you can bring it back with RetroBar, a free, open source application that replaces the taskbar in […]
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Hackaday: UNIX Archaeology Turns Up 1972 “V2 Beta”. “In 1997 a set of DEC tapes were provided by Dennis Ritchie, as historical artifacts for those interested in the gestation of the UNIX operating system. The resulting archive files have recently been analysed by [Yfeng Gao], who has succeeded in recovering a working UNIX version from 1972. What makes it particularly interesting is that […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2025/02/21/hackaday-unix-archaeology-turns-up-1972-v2-beta/