The Virtual OS Museum
A digital archive spanning over 70 years of computing history is now available to the public. Developed by software engineer Andrew Warkentin, The Virtual OS Museum provides access to a curated collection of more than 1,700 pre-installed operating system and software images, ready for use via emulation.
The archive covers over 250 computing platforms and approximately 600 distinct operating systems, dating from 1948 to the present day. Warkentin has been assembling this collection since 2003.
The project is available in two editions for download. The Full version requires a 121 GB download (expanding to 174 GB unzipped) and includes all content pre-installed for offline use. The Lite version requires a 14 GB download (21 GB unzipped) and retrieves guest virtual machine images on initial run. Both editions support automatic and manual updates.
Scope of the Collection
The archive includes operating systems from a wide range of computing eras and categories:
- Early Mainframes: Manchester Baby (1948), Mark 1, and EDSAC software.
- Later Mainframes and Minicomputers: CTSS, MVS, VM/370, TOPS-10/20, ITS, Multics, RSX, and RSTS.
- Workstations and Unix Variants: PERQ OSes, SunOS, IRIX, OSF/1, A/UX, NeXTSTEP, Plan 9, various BSDs, and multiple Linux distributions.
- Home Computers: CP/M variants, Apple II, Commodore 8-bit, Atari 8-bit, MSX, Tandy TRS-80, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, and Sharp MZ. The library also includes MOS for the Acorn BBC Master and hobby operating systems such as NitrOS-9 for the Tandy Radio Shack CoCo line.
- Personal Computers: DOS variants, OS/2, BeOS, Microsoft Windows (versions 1.0 through early Longhorn betas), classic Mac OS, and Mac OS X through version 10.5 for PowerPC.
- Mobile and Embedded Systems: PalmOS, EPOC/Symbian, Windows CE, Newton OS, early Android and iOS builds (where emulation permits), and QNX.
- Research and Obscure Systems: ZetaLisp, Smalltalk environments, and Oberon.
"Some operating systems in the collection may only function correctly with specific versions of an emulator."
Technical Notes
Warkentin has described the project as a preliminary release. According to the developer, some operating systems in the collection may only function correctly with specific versions of an emulator. The host virtual machine is currently built for the x86 architecture, which means performance on ARM-based systems, such as Apple Silicon, may be limited.