Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 4 minutes ago
What started as a simple challenge turned into something I honestly wasn't sure would work.
In this video I build a proof-of-concept web server using Turbo Basic 1.0 running under MS-DOS on real vintage hardware. Starting with serial communications, figuring out exactly what modern browsers expect, and wrestling with some less-than-reliable COM routines, I eventually got Firefox talking to a DOS program written in BASIC.
This isn't Apache. It isn't IIS. It's a few hundred lines of 1987 BASIC code answering HTTP requests over a serial port.
Along the way I cover:
Writing the server in Turbo Basic 1.0
Parsing HTTP GET requests
Serving multiple HTML pages
The browser quirks I had to work around
Why Turbo Basic's compiled COM routines appear to be unreliable
Where I plan to take the project next
The goal isn't to build a practical web server—it's to see just how far vintage software can be pushed, and to have a little fun doing it.
Next on the project:
Faster serial speeds
Cleaner code
Running on even older hardware
Eventually moving the concept to the Coleco ADAM and, hopefully, the IBM 5150 running Cassette BASIC.
If you enjoy retro computing, DOS programming, BASIC, or watching old hardware do things it was never meant to do, you're in the right place.
The source code is available at 8bitmilligames.com/TbWebServer.zip
What started as a simple challenge turned into something I honestly wasn't sure would work.
In this video I build a proof-of-concept web server using Turbo Basic 1.0 running under MS-DOS on real vintage hardware. Starting with serial communications, figuring out exactly what modern browsers expect, and wrestling with some less-than-reliable COM routines, I eventually got Firefox talking to a DOS program written in BASIC.
This isn't Apache. It isn't IIS. It's a few hundred lines of 1987 BASIC code answering HTTP requests over a serial port.
Along the way I cover:
Writing the server in Turbo Basic 1.0
Parsing HTTP GET requests
Serving multiple HTML pages
The browser quirks I had to work around
Why Turbo Basic's compiled COM routines appear to be unreliable
Where I plan to take the project next
The goal isn't to build a practical web server—it's to see just how far vintage software can be pushed, and to have a little fun doing it.
Next on the project:
Faster serial speeds
Cleaner code
Running on even older hardware
Eventually moving the concept to the Coleco ADAM and, hopefully, the IBM 5150 running Cassette BASIC.
If you enjoy retro computing, DOS programming, BASIC, or watching old hardware do things it was never meant to do, you're in the right place.
The source code is available at 8bitmilligames.com/TbWebServer.zip
