Key Takeaways
- MS-DOS 4 gets a second life on a PS/2 from 1987, beautifully replicating computing in the late 80s.
- Retro computing is cooler than ever, with old PCs, software, and retro games making a comeback.
- Full-blown gaming handhelds and modern-day PCs designed like retro consoles are bringing back the good old days.
It has only been a few days since Microsoft officially released MS-DOS 4 as open-source, and people are already finding new and inventive ways to put the operating system to use. However, you can’t really beat going back in time and putting the operating system on the exact same hardware that it would have ran on back in the day. This is what someone has achieved with an IBM PS/2 by building MS-DOS 4…on MS-DOS 4.
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MS-DOS 4 gets a second life on a PS/2
This cool feat was achieved by @virtuallyfun on X, who managed to build MS-DOS 4, on MS-DOS 4, using a PS/2. That’s not the console, by the way; this is an IBM PS/2 which released back in 1987. Given how MS-DOS 4 was released in 1988, the two of them are a perfect fit to see what it was like to use a PC in the late 80s. The process of building MS-DOS 4 took over an hour to complete, mainly because the Intel i386DX processor in the PC could only hit a clock speed of 16 MHz.
Retro computing has never been cooler
If stuff like this brings you back to the good old days, you’ll be happy to hear that old PCs and software have never been cooler. There are now tons of ways to play retro games, from emulators on your iPhone to full-blown, dedicated gaming handhelds. There’s also the Ayaneo Retro Mini PC that looks just like a SNES, but with the computing power of a modern-day PC. And if you really want the perfect mix of the old and the new, check out the time when someone turned a busted Compaq into a gaming powerhouse.