Boot the machines, don't just read about them
A companion to the museum — real vintage operating systems and software, running live in your browser.
Everything here is open source or freely-redistributable shareware, and it all runs client-side: the emulator loads in your browser, so nothing is installed and no machine elsewhere is doing the work. Pick a system, click Start, and you're at a real boot prompt. Browse by the same eras as the museum.
The IBM PC arrives
1981 – 1985An open architecture, a third-party DOS, and a clone industry are born.
AT, 386, 486 — the beige decade begins
1985 – 1993ISA, VGA, IDE, and a generation of beige towers under a generation of desks.
Pentium and multimedia
1993 – 1999CD-ROM, 3D acceleration, dial-up internet, and the war for the clock-speed crown.
The beige fades
2000 – 2010Black towers, laptops, x86-64, and the first signs that the PC era was peaking.