Archive of Operating Systems | Hacker News Reader

Archive of Operating Systems

archiveos.org

139 pointswallflower28 comments

This is more of a list than an archive, because the download links are all external and most of them are inevitably going to die as time passes.

Still, it's a pretty cool idea. Would be even cooler if they also listed non-free operating systems even if it's just to maintain a list for future reference.

Indeed, and even pretty weak vs Wikipedia.

I'm on the lookout for some obscure stuff. Older versions of OS/400, AIX, MP-RAS etc. Not even sure where to look.

OS/400 and AIX are both proprietary. FWIW, the SIMH project distributes a whole lot of proprietary OSes for use with its simulators, but generally does so under license; see

http://simh.trailing-edge.com/software.html

External to the site itself, but uploaded by the project (sourceforge.net/projects/archiveos), not just links to distros' sites.

Should be archive.org instead of sourceforge.net...

The page/repository doesn't have proper categorization.

I don't know what last release date was, I don't know how many bits, for which target architecture(s) is the OS intended, x86 32bit? X86 64bit? PPC? I don't know if the system is based on Linux or if it is something else. I can't do any sorting, only scrolling.

Mark Williams Company's Coherent is available as well: http://www.nesssoftware.com/home/mwc/source.php

The Coherent 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 (286) and Coherent 4.0 and 4.1 (386) distributions can be found here -- with the blessings of the copyright holders:

http://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/

> Archive of Operating Systems mission is saving the great job of many great people whose created Open Source and/or Freeware operating systems.

That leaves out a couple of couple of interesting ones :(

Missing: EROS, L4, CapROS, Coyotos, Amoeba, VSTa, Minix, Qubes, Just off the top of my head.

Missing RiscOS! It would be fun to see some obscure old ones there like Flex and Uniflex too, but then you'd have to add all the DOSs and CP/M as well.

Unfortunately the current owners of RISC OS are incredibly litigious... Shame really as I can't imagine there's a huge amount of money to be made from old versions.

Anyone remember [TUNES](http://tunes.org/)? They had a great collection of info about OSs. This seems to be what's left online:

- http://tunes.org/cliki/operating_20systems.html

Archive of Free and Abandoned Operating Systems

looks like it's missing templeOS. wonder if that was on purpose...

Is this a more extensive archive of OS screenshots (especially without all flavors of Linux that use the same DE): https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots

No Amiga or Atari OS?

ArchiveOS is only for free or open operating systems. For OSes like Amiga or Atari OS, WinWorld has you covered: https://winworldpc.com/library/operating-systems

ReactOS missing?

It is also missing GNU Hurd.

The about page[0] explains what operating systems they are archiving, that is those who are deemed abandoned or that the (OS) author considers completed.

> The most important criterias are:

> 1. The system has been published under a license which lets us offers it to share and download.

> 2. The system has been not under development more than 1 year or

> 3. The system’s developer announced finishing and/or closing down the project or

> 4. The system’s developer stopped development a version of the system so we can archive it, but other versions are still under development

> 5. The system’s image is available to get so we can move it to our download server and create a web page.

Both ReactOS and Hurd are under active development, but your joke is even more funny given the scope of ArchiveOS :-)

[0] https://archiveos.org/about-archiveos/

> CraftyOS is under development by young people and still is in early Alpha stage.

Like, how young are we talking about?

http://cpcdososx.wixsite.com/craftyos

When I was 15, I repaired a class set of iBooks and sold them to friends, and I was a moderator on the iPodLinux forums. (side note: I wish ArchiveOS had iPodLinux and Rockbox). Classmates were coding in ASM on our Ti84+ calculators.

I wish there were a free software company run entirely by under-18s. Schools are generally under-equipped to teach computer science. Parents are paying for food and shelter, and volunteer work can't be taxed. Government agents can't bribe minors, so I think the risk of backdoors is low. Companies can't have bizarre rules about intellectual property and side projects. There were some leetcode-style competitions (e.g. I went to SOI, the Schweizer Informatikolympiade) but no seriously major projects specifically for young people.

With the Raspberry Pi now taking the education market away from Apple, I hope that Linux will continue to mature and grow as the community goes on to university and jobs. I also think that Bitcoin has a niche with young people, who are not allowed to get credit cards from banks until age 18. I'm not worried about the social influence; I appreciated my online friends at that time because my parents' house in the countryside was physically far away from other kids.

Totally agree, I was doing similar things when I was 15 (but I was on the Ti82/83 since the Ti84 was super expensive!). I just thought it was odd that the description made a point of calling out it was 'developed by young people.' Can't say I've seen many software projects advertise that.

"Government agents can't bribe minors"

Government gets around a lot of rules by paying contractors for things which they acquire or develop in unscrupulous ways. We had hacker groups in my school. I wouldn't trust most of them if there were large amounts of money on the line or opportunities to have secrets/power others didn't have. There's always a set that would go for that doing even more damage than the average older person.

"Companies can't have bizarre rules about intellectual property and side projects."

They can. They'll just have to get the parents' consent. The kids are then forced to choose to not participate to avoid the conditions or participate despite the conditions. Most will participate.

I agree with you, though, that we need more programs hitting schools getting them more activities to do around building and coding things. There's a lot of potential. Funny that you were coding things on TI-84's cuz we were doing same thing on older calculators to sneak fun into classes where no gaming devices were allowed. :) Plenty of stuff we were doing mainly limited by lack of people who knew things and money. Also, you'd get posers or folks overselling their skills that end up wasting people's time or making them think a sub-field has more bullshitters than it does. Having good resources from real talent easily accessible helps counter that a bit.

It's why I like the makerspace movement so much, esp recent trend of combining them with libraries:

https://tascha.uw.edu/2014/06/libraries-makerspaces-a-revolu...

No RISC OS, I notice. There are open versions.

No OS/2? ::sad_face::

What you want is Michal Necasek and the OS/2 Museum, that I just mentioned at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17072960 .

Reply on news.ycombinator.com