os8088 / Real Machines

On real hardware

From the floppy to the screen.

Photographs and video of os8088 running on real machines, from an IBM 5150 to two Toshiba laptops, an Epson Equity I+, a Compaq Portable III, a Packard Bell 286 laptop and desktop, a Book8088 and other 286 PCs. See the desktop on monochrome monitors, LCDs, an orange plasma screen, VGA screens, and a Pentium II laptop at 1024x768 -- and full-screen video on a 286, and on the 5150 with its sound from the PC speaker.

Get the images Or boot it in your browser

IBM 5150

The 1981 IBM Personal Computer, an 8088 at 4.77MHz. Booted from a 360K floppy in its Tandon drive, onto an IBM 5151 monochrome monitor through a Hercules GB101 card, at 720x348.

A green phosphor monitor filling the frame. The os8088 desktop carries a Bounce window, a Note Pad typed with the machine's card list, an About os8088 box reading Hercules 720x348, a Clock at 00:11:45, a Task Manager reading CPU 3% and RAM 150K of 640K, a Minesweeper board and a Disk window listing MINES.O88, HELLO.O88, NOTEPAD.O88 and RECORDER.O88. — The same screen, close up. The Note Pad lists the machine's cards, the About box reads `Hercules - 720x348`, and the Task Manager reads 3% with six programs open.

A desk holding an IBM 5150 with a lit green IBM 5151 monitor on top of it showing the os8088 desktop, and beside it a Packard Bell case with an IBM 5153 color monitor on top whose screen is completely dark. A cassette recorder, a printer and other machines fill the rest of the bench. — The same 5150 on the bench. It has a CGA card and an IBM 5153 as well; os8088 picked Hercules over CGA, so the 5153 is dark.

IBM 5150, on two screens

A 5150 again, this time with both of its display cards in use: Hercules on an IBM 5151 and CGA on an IBM 5153, joined into one desktop across the two monitors. There is no sound card. The Video Player plays the soundtrack through the PC speaker, switching it on and off faster than the cone can settle, and that alone takes about 70% of the processor. Drawing frames and reading ahead off the hard disk into 640K of RAM share the rest; a frame that is not finished in time is cut.

CPU: 8088, 4.77MHz
hard disk: Seagate ST-225, 20MB
sound: PC speaker, 6500Hz

An IBM 5150 with an IBM 5151 monitor on top, its green screen showing os8088 with a Paint window open. Written by hand on the canvas in large black strokes: Pc SPK, 6500Hz, 4.77Mhz. A hand rests on a mouse on a blue pad in front, and to the right an IBM 5153 color monitor on a beige Packard Bell case is dark. — The 5151 in Hercules, with the setup written on Paint's canvas by hand. Still from the video by AcornsN64.

The IBM 5150 and both of its monitors side by side. The green 5151 on the left still shows the Paint window reading Pc SPK, 6500Hz, 4.77Mhz. The 5153 on the right, on a Packard Bell case, shows a Disk window titled MEDIA, reading Drive C: 14 files and listing CGAWOLF2.V88, ELYSIUM.MOD, GUIDE.TEX, MIKUMIKU.V88 and OS8088.GIF. — A Disk window moved across to the 5153, open on the MEDIA folder with `MIKUMIKU.V88` in it. Still from the video by AcornsN64.

The IBM 5153 color monitor filling the right of the frame, playing a video full screen in CGA's cyan, magenta, black and white: a cartoon figure in sunglasses on the left and the words I'M THINKING on the right. The 5151 to its left is blank, and a mouse and keyboard sit in front. — The video full screen on the 5153, in CGA's four colors. Still from the video by AcornsN64.

Epson Equity I+

An Epson Equity I+ 8088 computer from 1989, running os8088.

Toshiba T1100 Plus

A 1986 laptop with an 8086 at 7.16MHz and a blue LCD, running the CGA driver at 640x200. The 360K images were written onto 720K floppies to get them in.

The Toshiba's blue LCD filling the frame. The menu bar reads Mines and Game on the left and Aug 01 2026 3:45 AM on the right. A Disk window lists MINES.O88, HELLO.O88, NOTEPAD.O88, RECORDER.O88 and PIANO.O88 with NOTEPAD highlighted; a Minesweeper board sits in the middle; a Clock reads 00:04:03; and a Note Pad reads OS8088 on a Toshiba T1100Plus, CGA Graphics. — The same screen, close up. CGA gives the desktop 640x200 instead of 640x480, so the windows keep their width and lose half their height.

Compaq Portable III

Compaq's 1987 portable: a 286 in a case with a carrying handle, and an orange gas-plasma screen where the Toshiba has a blue LCD. Behind the plasma is a CGA adapter, so os8088 runs its CGA driver here too, and the display draws each line twice to fill the panel. The desktop gets the Toshiba's half-height windows, on twice the scan lines.

CPU: 80286, 12MHz
adapter: CGA, 640 x 200
screen: orange plasma, 640 x 400

A beige Compaq Portable III on a white bench, its screen raised above the case and its keyboard, badged Compaq Portable III, set in front on a coiled cord, with a yellow mouse on a black pad beside it. The orange plasma screen shows the os8088 desktop: a menu bar reading Note Pad, File, Edit and Find with Jul 04 2026 on the right, a Disk window titled MEDIA, a Note Pad, and a Video Player window titled os8088. — A Compaq Portable III running os8088, its keyboard unclipped from the front of the case.

The Compaq's orange plasma screen filling the frame. A Note Pad reads os8088 on a Compaq Portable III, 12Mhz 286, 640*200 Adapter Resolution, 640*400 Physical Screen. Behind it a Disk window titled MEDIA lists Drive A: with two OS8088 files, and a Video Player window titled os8088 shows a frame of an 8088 chip drawn in lines, with rewind, pause and fast-forward buttons below it. — The same screen, close up. The Note Pad carries the machine's own figures, beside the Video Player playing its os8088 clip.

Two beige Compaq Portable IIIs side by side on a white table, screens raised, each with its keyboard in front on a coiled cord and a pale cable looped over the tops of both cases. Both orange plasma screens show WireBall full screen. The left one reads WIREBALL, LEFT - serial linked, COM2, 02:03 and Rally!, with its paddle low at the left edge and the ball in the right half of its court. The right one reads RIGHT - serial linked, COM1, the same score and Rally!, with its paddle at the right edge. Along the bottom of each: Up/Down or W/S: paddle, P: pause, N: new, M: sound, Esc: desktop. — Two Portable IIIs playing WireBall over a serial cable, one Pong court across both screens. The left machine is on COM2 and the right on COM1; the ports do not have to match.

Two beige Compaq Portable IIIs side by side on a white table, screens raised and keyboards in front on coiled cords. Both orange plasma screens show the WireFleet window on the os8088 desktop, under a menu bar reading WireFleet, Game, Fleet and Link. Each window has two 10 by 10 grids: its own fleet of five ships on the left, and a few marked shots on the enemy grid on the right. The left screen reads ENEMY TURN and Captain 1 vs Captain 2, Turn 005, with Oct 23 2026 09:00 in the menu bar. The right one reads YOUR TURN at the same turn, with Feb 15 2026 13:09, and a bright vertical line runs down its panel. Under the grids on both: Fire Enter, Chat [T], Save S, Connect and Muted M, and the line Shot resolved. One shot per turn, including after a hit. — The same two machines on a null modem cable, playing WireFleet. Each one keeps its own fleet and judges the shots fired at it, so neither ever holds the other's ships.

The same two Compaq Portable IIIs from a step further back, with shelves of equipment behind them. Both screens still show turn 005 of the WireFleet battle, ENEMY TURN on the left and YOUR TURN on the right, with the menu bar clocks now at Oct 23 2026 09:01 and Feb 15 2026 13:10. — Turn 5, a minute later: ENEMY TURN on the left, YOUR TURN on the right. The two clocks are eight months apart; the game only needs the machines to agree on whose shot it is.

Packard Bell PB286LP-VGA

Packard Bell's first laptop, the PB286LP, came out in 1988 with a CGA screen, 1MB of RAM and one ISA slot. This is the April 1990 revision, which doubled the RAM and put VGA behind the same monochrome LCD -- enough for os8088's full desktop, where the Toshiba gets half its height.

CPU: 80C286, 12MHz
RAM: 2MB
chipset: C&T NEAT
BIOS: 10/23/89, model FC
screen: mono VGA LCD, 640 x 480
weight: 16lb

An open beige Packard Bell VGA laptop on a white bench, with a yellow mouse on a black pad beside it. The LCD shows os8088 running REDLINE on its Tune page: a Chipset box reading C&T NEAT, and a report reading CPU 286-class, BIOS 10/23/89 model FC, Detected C&T NEAT and a list of chipset probes with C&T NEAT FOUND among them. Under the screen are Power, Turbo, H.D.D. and F.D.D. lights and the brightness and contrast sliders. — A Packard Bell PB286LP-VGA running REDLINE's Tune page.

Packard Bell Victory

A 286 desktop playing full-screen video in the Video Player with no frames dropped or cut. A PicoMEM card does two jobs here: it is the hard disk, at about 500KB/s -- close to the 102MB drive the machine came with -- and it is the Sound Blaster 2.0. The video was filmed on an LCD, because the phone's camera and the CRT did not agree.

CPU: AMD 286, 16MHz
RAM: 4MB, 100ns
video: Paradise PVGA1A, 256KB
bus: ISA, 8 wait states
disk and sound: PicoMEM V1
playback: 30fps, full screen

From power-on to full-screen playback. Video by AcornsN64.

Victory, power-on

The power-on screen: the Phoenix 286 BIOS counts the memory, then the PicoMEM's own BIOS finds a 504MB disk image named OS8088. Still from the video by AcornsN64.

The os8088 desktop in VGA on the Dell LCD, with a blue background, a menu bar reading Video Player, File and Oct 31 2026 1:11 PM, and drive icons A:, B:, C: and Wire down the right. A Video Player window titled Catch My Heart shows a dithered frame of dancers above its seek bar and transport buttons, in front of a Disk window with 33.68M highlighted in its list of file sizes. — The Video Player in a window, in front of the Disk window it was opened from. Still from the video by AcornsN64.

The Dell LCD on the Packard Bell case, filled edge to edge by a frame of the music video: a dancer in a black vinyl outfit and long black gloves against a white wall, with another dancer in a white cap at the right edge. — Still from the video by AcornsN64.

Book8088

A modern 8088 laptop -- the same processor the IBM PC had, with a CGA-compatible screen, an OPL3 for sound and a CompactFlash card for a hard disk. It is also the one machine here that can drive a USB mouse, through the CH375 chip behind its USB socket. The Book8088 page has the machine, how to write its card, and the mouse.

In VGA

os8088 at 640x480 in mode 12h on a CRT -- the mode every other screenshot on this site is taken in.

A CRT filling the frame, showing the os8088 desktop at 640x480. A Clock reads 00:02:16, two Bounce windows each hold a black square, a Task Manager reads CPU 63% and RAM 151K of 639K, a Disk window lists five files with NOTEPAD.O88 highlighted, a Note Pad reads The most notey of pads, and a Piano keyboard is partly hidden behind them. Seven tiles fill the dock. — The os8088 desktop at 640x480 on a CRT, with eight programs open: a Clock, two Bounces, the Task Manager, Disk, Note Pad, Piano and Recorder.

A corner of a desk with a beige Packard Bell desktop case and a Key Tronic keyboard on the left, and on the right a Gateway 2000 case with a Dell CRT on top of it displaying the os8088 desktop. Two mice and a mouse pad sit between them. — The same CRT on the bench it was photographed on.

A beige desktop PC on a cloth-covered bench, with a full-size beige keyboard in front of it and a Panasonic PanaSync monitor on top showing the os8088 desktop in VGA. Four windows overlap on the screen: a Control Panel open on its Drivers page, one driver loaded and three not; a Disk window headed Drive B: 4 files, listing FONTS, MEDIA, README.TXT and SYSTEM; an About os8088 box; and the Task Manager, with its CPU history graph above the list of running programs. Two plastic disk boxes are stacked beside the monitor, the lower one packed with colorful disk sleeves. — Another 286 in VGA, on a different bench, with the Control Panel, the Disk window, the About box and the Task Manager open at once.

Toshiba Satellite 4025CDT

A Pentium II laptop from the late 1990s. It still starts up in real mode like an 8086, so os8088 boots on it as it does on the 5150 -- but the release images stop at VGA's 640x480, and this screen has 2.56 times as many pixels. Filling it takes a VBE driver Nullmoment wrote, which sets the mode through the video card's VESA BIOS. The Control Panel's Display page lists it beside VGA and CGA; Set Primary switches to it at once and keeps it for the next boot. The driver is not in the main os8088 tree yet, so no release image can do this.

CPU: Pentium II
mode: VBE, 1024 x 768
hard disk: C:, 1515MB free

An open grey Toshiba Satellite 4025CDT laptop on a cluttered desk, badged Intel Inside Pentium II and Powered by Red Hat under its screen, with three green lights lit along its front edge. The LCD shows the os8088 desktop on a blue gradient: a Control Panel on its Display page, an Apps window listing drive C:, a Note Pad, a Sheet, and a Paint window with a squiggle drawn in it. — A Toshiba Satellite 4025CDT running os8088 with Nullmoment's VBE driver. Photos by Nullmoment, shared on Discord.