Virtual OS Museum: Over 1700 old operating systems in a VM

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If you want to take a deep dive into computer history, you don't always need to have the right hardware and software on hand. There are emulators online for almost every piece of hardware ever built. QEMU is an all-rounder, SIMH is important for minicomputers or early Unix systems, and Hercules emulates old IBM systems. Previous is specialized in NeXT workstations, Basilisk II/SheepShaver for classic Macs, and MAME can display Unix machines from SGI, Sun, or Apollo in addition to arcade consoles. However, the difficult part today is no longer CPU emulation itself. Proprietary graphics systems, network cards, dongles, or special firmware ROMs are problematic. That's why many historical Unix systems only work with very specific emulator versions or carefully preserved configurations.

Emulation without software is pointless, and when searching for the appropriate classic operating system or even some typical applications, you need good search engines as well as sophisticated archaeological knowledge of IT history. Since old systems were often delivered on magnetic tapes, 8-inch floppy disks, or proprietary cartridges, and these drives are almost impossible to obtain (or even connect) today, emulators work with virtual drives and images of these media. And the fact that you start an old DEC PDP-11 from an emulated tape image via

att tm0 v7.tap boot tm0

is not necessarily standard knowledge for Windows, Mac, or GNU/Linux users. Installation on classic systems was typically done entirely by hand – a guided installation, wizards, or even a mouse-clickable installer were light-years away back then. Finding and setting up applications is almost the easiest part of the exercise.

20 years of research and work in one package

Fortunately, there is a solution: Canadian Andrew Warkentin has been dealing with exactly these problems for over 20 years and has set up an almost unbelievable project in that long time: the “Virtual OS Museum”.

The Virtual OS Museum is delivered completely in the form of a virtual machine for VirtualBox/QEMU/UTM with GNU/Linux (AMD64) and Xfce desktop installed, where the launcher for the emulators starts automatically. When you first look at the launcher and see the list of all available systems and configurations, you can hardly believe it: Starting with a demo of the “Manchester Baby” (Small-Scale Experimental Machine, SSEM) from 1948, including some programs, the Virtual OS Museum provides over 250 platforms on which over 600 different operating systems and a total of over 1700 versions and configurations can be launched. Andrew reportedly still has material for over 1000 more installations.

There is almost nothing that doesn't exist

The time travel begins: The launcher he developed himself is simple, clear, and functional. With a click, you are virtually sitting in front of a PDP-7 with Unix V0, a Xerox Alto OS with Smalltalk, all sorts of CP/M and DOS versions. Or the first GUI implementations like Xerox ViewPoint/GlobalView, Visi On, or the Apple Lisa. Gray-haired PC enthusiasts will find the DOS-based Windows versions, various Windows NT up to Longhorn betas, and alternatives like OS/2 or BeOS. Almost all of the highly sought-after Unix workstations of the time, along with their Unix variants, are represented. Home computers and mobile platforms are also included. Once you start browsing the list of available computer families, a whole afternoon quickly passes. There is no list of all included systems online, but a look at the project's “Credits” reveals what is contained in the Virtual OS Museum. Andrew gives a visual preview of the Virtual OS Museum in the video “I've built a virtual museum...“ on his YouTube channel.

The Virtual OS Museum comes as a complete package including the virtualization software in two variants: a 14 GB archive with the core system, where virtual systems and disk images are loaded on demand, and the “Full Edition” with a hefty 121 GB, which already contains everything. The launcher has an update function that allows individual systems to be updated selectively. Snapshots ensure that corrupted installations can be reset to a defined initial state with just a few clicks.

Computer history in a time capsule

With the Virtual OS Museum, Andrew aims not only to preserve historical software but also to reconstruct its usage context and preserve it for posterity. Therefore, many systems do not start in a bare standard installation, but together with the tools, development environments, or applications of the time – roughly as a computer was actually used back then. The Virtual OS Museum thus offers not only interesting entertainment but could become an objective mirror of IT history.

(mho)