A small system for the first PC generation

Antler/86 boots a graphical, networked Unix-like environment on IBM PC/XT-class 8088 and 8086 machines.

It combines a compact message-passing nucleus, resident system services, an ELKS-compatible command line, the Venison desktop, MicroWeb, AntChat, and drivers for ISA-era hardware. The target stays in real mode and treats conventional memory as a budget.

Get Antler/86 Read first-boot guide

CURRENT DESKTOP

The sparse gray Venison desktop with a top title strip and bottom command strip

Venison at 640 x 350 in 86Box. Right-click for the menu or type a command at the bottom prompt.

Built for limits

8088/8086 instructions and 16-bit real mode.
MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA, serial mouse, XT storage, and ISA networking.
Fixed-size IPC, process, filesystem, and network structures.
A complete source build, including the unbuilt IA-16 compiler.

Development release: keep backups and never write an Antler disk image to a drive containing wanted data.