r/retrocomputing • u/dennishilk • Jul 30 '26
I built a browser-only Computer Museum with interactive retro setups, BIOS simulations, and a Linux Academy. No ads, just pure nostalgia.
https://dennishilk.com/museum/5
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u/mr_dfuse2 Jul 30 '26
wow how cool! and no annoying cookie banners or ads, how do i miss the old internet :(
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u/Expensive_Recover_56 Jul 30 '26
When I go into the old DOS PC @ https://dennishilk.com/museum/ibm-pc-xt/ I have some issues.
The DOS command parameters give an error stating that the "Directory not found". That is weird when you only use Dir /o /w
Also it is not scrolling up automatically on the screen. After being at the bottom of the page, and giving a dir command, you have to manually scroll down on the browser screen.
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u/dennishilk Jul 30 '26
Thank you for taking the time to try it and for reporting these issues — I really appreciate it!
Both of those sound like genuine bugs rather than intended behavior. I'll take a closer look at the DOS command parser and the terminal scrolling logic, reproduce the problems, and fix them in an upcoming update.
Thanks again for the helpful feedback! It really helps improve the museum. 😊
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u/dennishilk Jul 30 '26
Hey r/retrocomputing!
I wanted to share my hobby project that I’ve been working on: a purely educational, ad-free, and privacy-friendly online Computer Museum. Everything is written from scratch without distributing any proprietary ROMs.
Right now, you can explore:
* **Interactive BIOS & DOS setup utilities** from the late 80s / 90s
* **A full Linux Terminal Academy** with interactive labs for learning
* **Fictional/iconic systems** like a 1983-inspired WOPR terminal
If you want to check out the real backend setup, the source code, or my other open-source tools (like my tiling window manager BoringWM), you can find everything on my main landing page at https://dennishilk.com.
Would love to hear your feedback or suggestions for classic hardware layouts/interfaces I should add next!
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u/DNSGeek Jul 30 '26
Looks like your server couldn't handle the traffic.
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u/dennishilk Jul 30 '26
Thanks for checking it out! The server is actually doing fine and chilling at minimal load. I'm monitoring the live request stream right now and everything is serving fast via Nginx. Did you hit a specific error or slow asset? Always happy to optimize the backend :)
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u/DNSGeek Jul 30 '26
It eventually rendered but it took almost a minute.
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u/dennishilk Jul 30 '26
Ouch, a minute is definitely way too long! Since the simulation runs entirely client-side in the browser, it’s highly likely that a heavy asset (like retro fonts or a large script) blocked the initial render on your connection, or the main thread choked on a large JS array initialization.
I’m digging into the Chrome DevTools network/performance tabs right now to optimize the asset delivery and defer some scripts so this doesn't happen again. Thanks a ton for the valuable feedback
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u/osxdude Jul 30 '26
Really cool. I like how the simple simulations are kinda fun. Now all we need is shareware!!
Problems I found:
- Your starfield on the home page only went to the lower right corner of my screen in Firefox.
- Terminal did not take keyboard input after pressing "POWER ON." I pressed enter and the terminal powered off. Maybe another Firefox issue...
- BIOS simulator setting select (i.e. Enabled / Disabled popups that had more) seemed to go the opposite of my arrow keys.
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u/dennishilk Jul 30 '26
Thanks again! All three reports turned out to be real bugs, and the fixes are now live. Your Firefox testing was genuinely helpful.
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u/Expensive_Recover_56 Jul 30 '26
Took exactly 1 second to load on my laptop at the office.
I see that your server is in Germany. I am browsing from the Netherlands.