Barely Booting

> Building new hardware for old computers.

This started as “can I turn my 286 into a daily driver?” and has since become an ISA card, a text-mode browser, a Discord client, an AI client, and a hardware diagnostic. All running on DOS. The hardware is in bench assembly; the software runs in DOSBox-X against simulated I/O.

Animated: Discord v2 for DOS with 8 channels, colored usernames, reactions, word-wrapped messages, and real-time message feed — Discord v2 for DOS. 8 channels, reactions, search, PC speaker. 37KB.

Cathode: a text-mode web browser for DOS. Sort of.

TAKEOVER: five AI scenarios, VGA plasma visuals, AdLib FM audio. 58KB.

I’m Tony. By day I work in cybersecurity. By night I’m trying to get vintage PCs onto the modern internet, probably the hard way.

NetISA is the hardware side: an ISA expansion card with an ESP32-S3 for WiFi and TLS 1.3, bridged to the bus by a CPLD. The idea is to move all the crypto work off the retro CPU so an 8088 doesn’t have to pretend it can do RSA. On top of that sits a growing DOS software stack: CATHODE (a text-mode web browser, sort of), DISCORD v2 for DOS, a CLAUDE Anthropic API client, HEARO, a music player that supports 24 audio devices and turns on features based on what hardware it detects, and CHIME, a small tool that asks the network for the current time and sets the DOS clock. CERBERUS is the three-headed diagnostic tool that figures out what vintage hardware actually is and whether it’s telling the truth. Separately, TAKEOVER is an interactive AI takeover simulator that has nothing to do with networking. I just got carried away with demoscene effects and couldn’t stop.

Right now the software all works in DOSBox-X against simulated responses. As of 2026-04-23 the NetISA hardware is actually on the bench; every line of the BOM arrived and bench assembly is the next phase. Which is also where I fully expect things to start going wrong. Everything is open source so you can watch it happen in real time.

Bus 8/16-bit ISA

CPU 8088 to 486+

WiFi 802.11 b/g/n

TLS 1.3 (hardware)

TSR < 2 KB

License MIT / CERN-OHL-P

Follow the build

YouTube: @BarelyBooting (build videos, progress updates)
GitHub: BarelyBooting (source, hardware, firmware)
NetISA project page (status, specs, architecture)
CERBERUS project page (DOS hardware detection, diagnostic, and benchmark tool)
HEARO project page (DOS music player built around recognition density)
CHIME project page (DOS network time-sync utility)
CATHODE project page (text-mode web browser for DOS, sort of)
DISCORD project page (Discord v2 client for DOS)
CLAUDE project page (Anthropic API client for DOS)
TAKEOVER project page (AI takeover simulator for DOS)
Build log (milestones, what shipped and when)
RSS feed

Community

This project lives where the retro community does. Come say hi, ask questions, or tell me what I’m doing wrong (there’s probably a lot):

r/retrobattlestations (project posts and discussion)
VOGONS (vintage computing forum)
Hackaday (project logs)
GitHub Discussions (questions, ideas, feedback)

Or just poke around the GitHub. Most of this is me learning in public.