If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to use the many Apple (and NeXT) operating systems released over the past 40 years, the Virtual OS Museum has what you need and more. Here are the details.
“Over 1,700 installations, representing over 250 different platforms and over 600 distinct operating systems”
As spotted by BoingBoing, the Virtual OS Museum is a project by developer Andrew Warkentin that provides a way to run over 1,700 pre-installed operating systems and standalone applications in emulation, covering over 250 platforms and approximately 600 distinct operating systems from 1948 to the present.
The project is available in two editions: a full 121 GB download (174 GB unzipped), with everything pre-downloaded for offline use, and a lighter 14 GB download (21 GB unzipped), which downloads guest VM images on first run.
Or, as the Virtual OS Museum puts it:
A full version and a lite version are available. The full version comes with everything pre-downloaded and works offline. The lite version downloads the disk/tape/etc. images for guest virtual machines when they first run. Both automatic and manual updates are supported on both editions, so new installations arrive without re-downloading the entire VM.
Warkentin says the Virtual OS Museum “is the result of more than 20 years of collecting, which began when he began collecting emulator images in 2003, a time when there were only a few small archives of software images and documentation available.”
Here’s some of what you can expect to find:
- The first central computers: Manchester Baby test/demo programs, Mark 1 Scheme A/B/C/T (early examples of system software that could be considered an operating system), various EDSAC software, etc.
- Mainframes and later minicomputers: CTSS, MVS, VM/370, TOPS-10/20, ITS, Multics, RSX, RSTS, and more
- Unix workstations and variants: Operating systems PERQ, SunOS, IRIX, OSF/1, A/UX, NeXTSTEP, Plan 9, various BSDs, as well as Linux distributions over the decades, and more
- Personal computers: various CP/M variants, Apple II, 8-bit Commodore machines, 8-bit Atari, MSX, Tandy TRS-80, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Sharp MZ, and more
- Operating systems for personal computers: Various variants of DOS, OS/2, BeOS, Windows from version 1.0 to early Longhorn betas, classic Mac OS up to Mac OS X 10.5 PPC, and more
- Mobile and embedded: PalmOS, EPOC/Symbian, Windows CE, Newton OS, the first Android and iOS, where emulation allows, QNX, etc.
- Research and dark systems: ZetaLisp, Smalltalk environments, Oberon, Plan 9, and many others that few people have already started
As Warkentin notes on the project’s website, not all emulated systems are guaranteed to behave perfectly. The project is still described as a preview release, with some operating systems only working in specific emulator versions.
Additionally, the host VM is currently x86 only, “so if you’re on ARM or any other non-x86 platform, performance will be rather limited.” This means Apple Silicon Macs may not perform at their best. However, it is an infinitely interesting project.
Be sure to check out the Virtual OS Museum website, which includes download links, quick-start instructions for macOS, Windows, and Linux, a full list of included installations, and screenshots of several systems already running.
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