I had
#Minix on another 286 for a while, and there's some 16-bit "port" of Linux that is not as old as it should be. And of course the venerable OS/2 1.x, and a few actual
#Unix variants as you point out. I didn't know about V6on286, that's a beautiful little nugget, thank you!
All of those things are absolutely wonderful and make many of todays software developers look ... spoiled? What I want, however - and what I love doing - is making this old hardware do stuff its makers never dreamt of, things that are as far removed from their time as possible. That's why I will, if
#NetBSD permits, run bleeding edge BSD on a 286-on-486steroids, and why I run web+ftp+irc servers (yes, multitaskign) on one 286 and multiple BBS nodes on a 386 - like one used to do, of course.
I cannot state often enough how amazing it is that there's still software developed today that will work under such constraints.
#RunBSD #EndOfRant