Programmer gets AI Chatbot running on a retro computer

A programmer in Singapore has made waves in the tech community by getting the OpenAI model ChatGPT running on a computer from 1984 running DOS.

Yeo Kheng Meng, a self-described "retrocomputing enthusiast," used his skills to build a DOS client to use ChatGPT, and then shared a video of his conversation with the AI model on YouTube.

While DOS was not originally designed for internet use, Meng says that he wanted to take on the challenge of making it work, and to showcase how far technology has come since the 1980s. Despite facing some difficulties due to the lack of networking abilities and weaker processing power of DOS, Meng was able to use MTCP, a scalable network stack built for DOS machines, to enable ChatGPT to work.

Additionally, he found a way to use his own http-to-https-proxy in Golang to handle the HTTPS API calls that ChatGPT requires. The result is a testament to Meng's ingenuity and the versatility of modern technology.