The Intel 8088 is an interesting chip, being a variant of the more well-known 8086. Given the latter went on to lend its designation to one of the world’s favorite architectures, you can tell which of the two was higher status. Regardless, it was the 8088 that lived in the first IBM PC, and now, it even has its own open-source BIOS.
As with any BIOS, or Basic Input Output System, it’s charged with handling core low-level features for computers like the Micro 8088, Xi 8088, and NuXT. It handles chipset identification, keyboard and mouse communication, real-time clock, and display initialization, among other things.
Of course, BIOSes for 8088-based machines already exist. However, in many cases, they are considered to be proprietary code that cannot be freely shared over the internet. For retrocomputing enthusiasts, it’s of great value to have a open-source BIOS that can be shared, modified, and tweaked as needed to suit a wide variety of end uses.
If you want to learn more about the 8088 CPU, we’ve looked in depth at that topic before. Feel free to drop us a line with your own retro Intel hacks if you’ve got them kicking around!
I think that calling it an 8088 BIOS is doing Sergey something of a disservice. There is code in the BIOS for nested PICs (not an 8088 feature) as well as keyboard controller with PS/2 mouse support.
More of an 8088++ :-)
Thumbs up – great work !
Good! I may use it in my 8086 etc emulator for PIC32s :)
I recognised that as Sergey’s board even though I hadn’t seen this yet! I guess PCB design let’s you guess the artist just like in any other art.
I still have a few Monster FDC PCB’s lying around that I need some time to finish..
Regarding other, supposedly closed 8088 BIOSes, there is one project that deserves mention as well: GLaBIOS: https://glabios.org/ – which is GPLv3. So this is not the only one.
I believe that’s a reference to GLaDOS, the AI from Portal.
– Because, BIOS and DOS are related, too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLaDOS
Anyway, that’s old news, maybe. I just mention it, in case someone isn’t familiar with it. Portal isn’t exactly new anymore, either. And not everyone is into computer games.
Ummm – I am very confused. Didn’t the SBC188 have an 8088 open source BIOS?
I built one of these EBC cased systems in about 2020.
https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:sbc:sbc-188:start
Yes, the “finally” doesn’t make sense at all.