iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Released new Virtual OS Museum base images with the installations I'd recently uploaded to the repository. virtualosmuseum.org/downloads/

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

execve() functions more like execvpe(), looking up programs from the internal table rather than just looking them up normally in the filesystem as in basically every other Unix. I'm assuming this is to allow it to load binaries from a TFTP server, which doesn't support directory listing.

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Which user programs are available is determined by a configuration file, and this is used to create a table of available programs; it doesn't appear to be able to just run arbitrary binaries. However, such external programs seem to be loaded on demand rather than pre-linked into the system at boot.

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Unlike just about any other functional/genetic Unix I'm aware of, netOS is based on a megalithic architecture with some user programs linked into the kernel image, like the X server and shell, but it is capable of loading external binaries from a disk or remote server.

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Added netOS for HDS/Neoware X terminals based on the Intel i960 to the OS museum. Most X terminals run fairly limited unikernel OSes or the like, but netOS is a heavily customized BSD derivative with a fairly open architecture (it even has a Netscape port).

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Also added DX-DOS for the Elektronika BK, a Soviet home computer based on the K1801VM1 PDP-11-compatible microprocessor. While most of the various OSes for these machines somewhat resemble MS-DOS, DX-DOS is the only one of which I am aware that is more or less a true MS-DOS clone

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Earlier MAI Basic Four machines were based on Microdata minicomputers and ran a non-Unix-like OS with a similar Business BASIC to the one in BOSS/IX (I believe this OS may have been a pure timesharing BASIC rather than a more generalized type of OS)

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

UNOS is kind of similar to UniFlex; both are not quite proper functional Unices and have some incompatibilities like a lack of groups, but overall are a lot closer than something like OS-9 or QNX Classic

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Added BOSS/IX for the MAI Basic Four System 2000, a 68k-based office computer from the 80s. This is a modified distribution of UNOS, a Unix-like RTOS that was ported to various 68k machines. A port of MAI Business Basic is included

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Despite the 6.3 filenames and .SAV extension for executables, this OS isn't otherwise all that similar to DEC OSes

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Also installed FDDOS for the SORD M20/M23 (a Z80-based home computer from 1982)

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The Smalltalk-80 environment is bundled; the window system with a terminal emulator is a modern addition; the image is from elektraglide.com. Just like UniFLEX for 6809, UniFLEX 68k is fairly close to being a proper functional Unix but has some significant differences in places

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Added Tektronix's distribution of UniFLEX/68k for the 4400 "AI workstations"

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Installed CP/M and LocoScript for the PCW as well

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Also installed the SINTRAN-like TPE Monitor single-tasking diagnostic OS for the same machine

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Installed SINTRAN III for the Norsk Data ND-100 minicomputer; this is a real-time and timesharing OS that's kind of comparable to RSX or RTE; unusually, it allows abbreviating filenames in addition to commands

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The company that developed PCVMS (Wendin) also had a multitasking DOS (Wendin DOS) that I've downloaded but haven't yet installed, as well as a Unix-like OS that ran on top of DOS (PCUNIX/PCNX, which unfortunately appears to be lost)

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Last is PCVMS, a mid-80s VMS-like OS that runs on top of DOS and extends it (it's kind of analogous to MiNT on TOS or GNO/ME on GS/OS, except that the extended environment it provides is VMS-like instead of Unix-like)

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Also installed AISIX, a simple conventional Unix for XR/station from the same developer as MINTIA (it came before MINTIA and was the original OS for XR/station) github.com/xrarch/aisix

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Next is MINTIA, an OS with an NT-like kernel and Unix-like shell/commands that also runs on fox32, but originally was written for another fantasy computer, specifically the XR/station, which is modelled on RISC workstations; it also has an x86 PC port github.com/xrarch/mintia

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Added a few new OSes to the OS museum repository (available as updates; they aren't yet in the base VM). First off is fox32os, the official OS for the fox32 fantasy computer, which is modelled on early Macs and has a vaguely 68k-like CPU

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I've already included that very image

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

As always, all updates are available through the update feature of the launcher, so there is no need to re-download if you already downloaded a previous version. No changes to the external scripts have been made, so there's no new external update release

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Released a new Virtual OS Museum image including all of the installations I'd added earlier, plus updated A/UX images (the old Shoebill images have been replaced with MAME ones, and the 3.1.1 QEMU image has some minor fixes) virtualosmuseum.org

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

I've got a late version of the WebOS SDK, but I haven't looked too closely at it. I'm not sure how easy it will be to make the image run in QEMU instead of VMware

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I've released a UX/RT demo image. It includes banner and Hunt the Wumpus from the BSD games package, and runs from the filesystem built into the boot image (no disk filesystem support yet) uxrt.org youtu.be/AVrGQYPbGco andreww591.blogspot.com/2026/08/my-o...

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Will release a demo ISO and add it to the OS museum soon

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Got sash working a bit better under UX/RT. Had to fix various issues (mostly filesystem-related) that I didn't catch with the previous hardcoded tests

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

It might take a little bit to boot because it's running on an emulated CPU, but it shouldn't be that long. What happens if you change the emulated graphics card type to something other than VMware VGA and boot with verbose messages?

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

What do you see if you enable verbose boot messages? I don't have any x86 or ARM Macs to test on (I tested on a friend's M1 MacBook and it worked on there).

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

UX/RT finally runs a shell, although many of the commands are currently broken. Once I get more of them working I will release a proof-of-concept binary image and add it to the OS museum.

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Installed the KERNAL for the Commodore LCD, an abandoned prototype laptop based on somewhat similar hardware and software to their other 8-bit machines, although unlike their other machines it boots into a TUI shell instead of straight into BASIC

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

It's a general-purpose real-time OS that was often used for process control and data acquisition systems, and is comparable to RSX or RTE (although it's a bit clunkier than either of those, being somewhat similar to other IBM batch-oriented OSes)

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Added EDX, one of the OSes for the IBM Series/1 minicomputer, to the OS museum

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

UX/RT now runs a test program that makes a few VFS calls

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Added EOS 3, a German CP/M-compatible OS for the Sharp MZ-3500

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Getting the first non-trivial test programs working should just be a matter of setting up an IPC buffer and changing the runtime to work with non-root processes

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I've also managed to get UX/RT running some dummy user programs (one hangs, and the other tries to jump to 0xdeadbeef to produce a distinctive fault)

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

The Triple X has an expansion slot compatible with the BBC Micro but is otherwise not based on it.

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Torch was a British company that made peripherals for Commodore and Acorn home computers before they made workstations, including Tube second processors for the BBC Micro, one of which was a 68k running System III Unix

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

The GUI is pretty advanced for the mid 80s and is obviously a clone of that of Mac OS of that era. Like most other Unix GUIs of that era, it is a kernel driver accessed through device files.

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

However, the Triple X uses the rare Motorola 68451 MMU, which only supports 32 variable-size segments/regions, whereas the Unix PC has a custom MMU with full paging like most other 68010-based machines

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

The OS is more advanced than Unix PC SVR2 in some ways; it has symlinks, a built-in IP stack (Unix PC SVR2 had one available but it was a third-party add-on), and a more advanced GUI (called OpenTop)

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Added UniPlus+ SVR2 for the Torch Triple X, a low-end 68010-based workstation roughly comparable to the AT&T Unix PC and contemporary with it

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Added MPL OS, a Unix-like hobby OS for the X68000 (which uses executables in Human68k format)

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Uploaded a video showing the OSes I've added: youtu.be/pg0NCgVDCOg

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

All of the fixes and new images are available as updates through the launcher if you have a previous version, except for SMP in QEMU, which can be enabled by unzipping the external update over the previous folder As usual, images and external updates can be found at virtualosmuseum.org/downloads/

virtualosmuseum.org

The Virtual OS Museum - Downloads

The Virtual OS Museum is a curated, pre-installed collection of over 1,700 operating systems and standalone applications spanning the entire history of stored-program computing, from the Manchester Ba...

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Andrew Warkentin @andreww591.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Also added is a checkbox in the launcher settings to disable nested virtualization for the x86 PC VMs that support it, since apparently it causes hangs on some hosts

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