GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
Hello HN, I've been working on a simple OS for tinkering and running bare metal apps on vintage PCs. Since I couldn't quite decide whether to target pure 16-bit, or slightly more capable 32-bit machines, I ended up with two separate versions: - GentleOS/32 (https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos32) works on i386+, requires 4MB of RAM and VGA display supporting 640x480x16 mode or any 256-color VESA mode. - GentleOS/16 (https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos) works on 80186+, requires less than 192KB of RAM and a CGA display supporting 320x200x4…
In plain words
GentleOS is a pair of hobby operating systems for running bare metal applications on vintage PCs. The 32-bit version runs on i386 machines with 4MB RAM and VGA display support, while the 16-bit version works on 80186+ systems using less than 192KB RAM and CGA displays. Both versions are designed for tinkering and experimentation on older hardware, with source code available on GitHub.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hello HN, I've been working on a simple OS for tinkering and running bare metal apps on vintage PCs. Since I couldn't quite decide whether to target pure 16-bit, or slightly more capable 32-bit machines, I ended up with two separate versions: - GentleOS/32 (https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos32) works on i386+, requires 4MB of RAM and VGA display supporting 640x480x16 mode or any 256-color VESA mode. - GentleOS/16 (https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos) works on 80186+, requires less than 192KB of RAM and a CGA display supporting 320x200x4 mode. You can find more details in the repos.
Does the same job
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Hello. I wrote a multitasking 16-bit real mode "operating system" that works on every IBM PC compatible computer, and a TCP/IP stack for it. Then I wrote an HTTP server for it.
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