Download Binbows 98

Everything on this page is free. There is no account, no newsletter, no "download manager" that installs four toolbars. It's 1998 in spirit only.

Binbows 98 Second Edition (ISO)

💿 binbows_98_x86.iso

The bootable disc image. Write it to a USB stick or point a virtual machine at it. It is a hybrid ISO/GPT image, so the same file works as a virtual CD-ROM and as a USB stick on real hardware — there is no second download for that.

File	`binbows_98_x86.iso`
Size	3,383,808 bytes (3.23 MB)
Architecture	x86-64, UEFI only. Boots from firmware; no host operating system required.
Contains	`EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI` plus a FAT12 volume labelled `BINBOWS` holding `LOGO.SYS`, `README.TXT`, `AUTOEXEC.BAT` and `CONFIG.SYS`
Version	4.10.1998, which is what `VER` will tell you
SHA-256	`e6e634476b256ffd7a8e1ad2a9a3cdfecd52c1f81e2edc85d0ecbfd35b9cf130`
Licence	See the repository. Short version: it's a joke, have fun — except `font.h`, which is GPL-2.0 and says so.

Download ISO (3.23 MB) GitHub repository

Verify the checksum. Run one of these, compare it to the hash above. If it doesn't match, you downloaded something else, and we'd genuinely like to know what.

# Windows (PowerShell)
Get-FileHash binbows_98_x86.iso -Algorithm SHA256

# macOS / Linux
shasum -a 256 binbows_98_x86.iso

It needs UEFI, not a legacy BIOS. The costume says 1998; the boot path does not. This is an EFI application, so a VM configured for legacy BIOS will show you a "no bootable medium" message and nothing else. Turn EFI on. On real hardware, turn Secure Boot off as well — the binary is unsigned.

Running Binbows in a virtual machine

The recommended way, unless you have a spare machine in the garage, in which case use the spare machine and send us a photo.

Download and verify the ISO using the checksum above.
Create a VM with 256 MB of RAM and no hard disk at all. There is nothing to install and nothing is ever written, so a virtual disk would only sit there.
Turn on EFI/UEFI firmware in the VM settings. This is the step everyone misses and it is the only one that can't be skipped.
Attach the ISO to the virtual CD-ROM drive and boot from it.
Watch the splash, then read what happens next — all of it — press a key, and type HELP at the prompt.

Tested hosts
Host	Works?	Notes
QEMU + OVMF	Yes	The development environment, so it is the best-tested path. One-liner below.
VMware Fusion / Workstation	Yes	Pick "Other 64-bit" and set the firmware type to UEFI. The hybrid GPT partition exists largely for VMware's benefit.
VirtualBox	Yes	System ▸ Motherboard ▸ Enable EFI. Without that tick you get nothing.
UTM (macOS)	Yes	Use the x86-64 backend with UEFI boot. On Apple silicon it emulates rather than virtualises, and it is slow. It was always slow.
Real hardware	Yes	Any UEFI PC or Intel Mac from roughly the last fifteen years. See below.
86Box / PCem	No	They emulate the actual 1998 chipsets, which means a legacy BIOS, which means no UEFI. The one place the joke stops working.

# QEMU one-liner (OVMF path varies by distro)
qemu-system-x86_64 \
  -drive if=pflash,format=raw,readonly=on,file=/usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_CODE.fd \
  -cdrom binbows_98_x86.iso -m 256M -net none

Putting it on a USB stick

The image is a hybrid, so it is written raw — no partitioning, no formatting, no bootloader install step. Everything on the stick is overwritten.

# macOS / Linux — check the device name twice, then once more
sudo dd if=binbows_98_x86.iso of=/dev/disk4 bs=4m

# Windows: use Rufus in DD mode, or balenaEtcher

Then reboot, hold whichever key your firmware uses for the boot menu, and pick the stick. On an Intel Mac, hold Option. On most PCs it is F12, Esc, or F8, or whichever one you don't try first.

The one genuine warning on this website: dd will happily overwrite the wrong disk and not mention it. Confirm the device name before you press Enter, not after.

Drivers

There aren't any, and that is not a joke about our support quality. Binbows talks to your machine through the firmware's own protocols, so there is nothing to install and nothing to configure.

Graphics, keyboard and storage

Handled by the firmware's own protocols. If your machine can show you a boot menu, it can run this.

Your disks

Not touched, not opened, not looked at. Only the volume you booted from is mounted, as drive C:, and nothing writes to it either.

Sound and network

Not working. Ask ssh at the prompt about the network; it has a view.

Service packs & updates

The corporate names are ours; the work behind them is in the repository's roadmap, which is longer and more sincere than this table.

Update	Status	What it changes
Service Pack 1	Shipped	Replaced the improvised font with the IBM VGA 8x16 face, all 256 CP437 code points, and added whole-pixel magnification so the text grid stays near 80x25 at any resolution.
Service Pack 2	Shipped	The real filesystem. `DIR`, `CD`, `TYPE` and `VOL` stopped being a string table and started reading the volume.
Colour Pack	Shipped	A per-cell colour plane, `FETCH`, and the forty declined Linux commands. Also renamed `WIN` to `BIN`, permanently.
Binbows Plus! Pack	Shipped	The `LOGO.SYS` boot splash, and then the palette-cycling bar, which is the single most 1998 thing in the codebase.
Y2K Update	Shipped	The year 2000 is supported. 2001 is under review. See the Y2K guide.
Service Pack 3	Planned	Real memory figures from `GetMemoryMap`, a working warm reboot, wildcards for `DIR`, and randomised failures so no two boots match.

Extras

Your own boot splash. Replace LOGO.SYS on the medium with an uncompressed BMP and it is picked up on the next boot. Instructions on the using Binbows page.
Web badges. The 88×31 GIFs on this site are yours. Put one on your page. Link back if you feel like it.
Logo & icon. binbowslogo.svg and binbowsicon.svg, both vector, both free to use.

Source code

Binbows is developed in the open, which means you can read exactly how it works and then wish you hadn't. It is one main.c, a minimal uefi.h, a generated font header, and a Makefile.

github.com/lucya-astralis/binbows Developer documentation

🚧 MIRROR WANTED 🚧
Hosting a mirror? Write to [email protected] and we'll list it here.

📦 Mirrors