# Barely Booting

Tony Atkins's hardware notebook. Atlas 286, a BIOS for 286 PCs written from scratch, and NetISA, a design for an ISA card that gives DOS PCs modern HTTPS.

Source page: https://barelybooting.com/

I build hardware and software for old PCs. Sometimes the original parts are getting hard to find. Sometimes I want to understand how something worked. Sometimes I have a bad idea and a soldering iron. Those projects end up here.

## Projects

<div class="project" markdown="1">

### [Atlas 286](/atlas286/)

A BIOS for 286 PCs that I'm writing from scratch.

**Status:** boots DOS on my real Packard Bell PB686; working toward 1.0.

</div>

<div class="project" markdown="1">

### [NetISA](/netisa/)

An ISA card I'm designing to give DOS PCs modern HTTPS.

**Status:** design stage, not built yet.

</div>

## Latest

- 2026-10-25: [The test harness failed before the BIOS did](/atlas286/journal/2026-10-25-harness-failed-before-the-bios/)
- 2026-10-24: [The original arrived](/atlas286/journal/2026-10-24-the-original-arrived/)
- 2026-10-23: [From EPROM burner to ROM emulator](/atlas286/journal/2026-10-23-eprom-burner-to-rom-emulator/)


[The whole journal](/atlas286/journal/)