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Dev tools · February 27, 2026

BV

BananaOS, vibecoded operating system that boots on a 486 with ~11MB RAM

My 10-year-old son has been deep in low-level rabbit holes lately and ended up vibe-coding his own operating system. Since he’s still a kid and not on HN himself, I’m posting this on his behalf with his permission. This started as curiosity about how computers actually boot, and somehow escalated into writing a kernel, building a GUI, and setting up CI that produces a bootable OS image on every commit. BananaOS is a small experimental operating system built mainly for learning and exploration of low-level systems programming. It currently targets i386 BIOS systems and is designed to run on…

BananaOS, vibecoded operating system that boots on a 486 with ~11MB RAM launched on February 27, 2026 with 11 votes, #985 of 16,627 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches.

Alternativestop 6% of February 2026

In plain words

BananaOS is an experimental operating system designed to run on minimal hardware, including 486 processors with approximately 11MB of RAM. Built primarily as a learning project in low-level systems programming, it features a custom kernel, VESA graphics with a window manager, and multiboot compliance. The OS targets i386 BIOS systems and generates bootable images through automated continuous integration. It is intended for educational exploration of how computers boot and function at the kernel level.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

In the maker’s words, at launch

My 10-year-old son has been deep in low-level rabbit holes lately and ended up vibe-coding his own operating system. Since he’s still a kid and not on HN himself, I’m posting this on his behalf with his permission. This started as curiosity about how computers actually boot, and somehow escalated into writing a…

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