ChatGPT is on fire. Recently we learned to use the chatbot with our own voice, and even to send requests via radio. We also explored the possibility of connecting it to the Web, which is basically a preview of its inevitable proliferation on mobile devices. However, a retro hardware enthusiast named Yeo Kheng Meng decided to do something very special: write doschgpt, a ChatGPT client compatible with MS-DOS, and run it on real hardware.
One million users in five days. One hundred million users in two months. ChatGPT is shaping up as the “killer app” of artificial intelligence, and market giants are trying to compete… or adopt its technology. But ChatGPT’s story goes beyond what the Googles or Microsofts of our lives do. OpenAI enabled its API, which means we’ll soon see new developments powered by ChatGPT.
One of those developments brings us to the portal of Yeo Kheng Meng, programmer and retro hardware enthusiast. What was his idea? Building a DOS ChatGPT client, called Doschgpt. But the best part is he decided to run his software on a IBM 5155 portable. That tank dates back to 1984, with a price of $4,225… more than $12,000 adjusted for inflation.
Doschgpt: ChatGPT for MS-DOS
It’s worth remembering that MS-DOS lacks built-in networking, and computers running this operating system aren’t usually shining examples of high performance. Yeo chose the IBM 5155 as a kind of absolute minimum: if the client works on that machine, it will work on any other. The only emulation environment he used (VirtualBox) was to test his client on a Windows x64 computer, since it can’t run 16-bit apps.
However, the “glue” of this project is mTCP, a package of TCP/IP applications specially designed to run under MS-DOS, FreeDOS, PC-DOS, and other similar flavors. Add the Packet Driver PC/TCP, a network API for DOS invented in 1983. With the combination of both resources and the Open Watcom C/C++ compiler, the client started working without a hitch…
… but there are still compatibility details to resolve. A quick visit to doschgpt’s GitHub profile confirms that some users are having issues with previous versions of MS-DOS, so we recommend following Yeo’s path and using MS-DOS 6.22.
Doschgpt on GitHub: Click here
Official site: Click here
