RustChain DOS Miner - "Fossil Edition"

For 8086/286/386/486/Pentium DOS systems

"Every vintage computer has historical potential"

Bootable Disk Images

Two versions available - both contain RustChain miner source code:

FreeDOS Edition (Recommended)

File: rustchain-dos-miner.img (32MB)

• FreeDOS 1.3 base system (fully bootable)
• Best compatibility with vintage hardware
• Source code in C:\RUSTCHN\

MS-DOS Edition (Authentic)

File: rustchain-msdos.img (32MB)

• Genuine MS-DOS 4.0 (MIT licensed, open source since April 2024)
• IBMBIO.COM, IBMDOS.COM, COMMAND.COM from Microsoft sources
• Source code in C:\RUSTCHN\
• Note: May require SYS command to install boot sector

Installation

# Write to USB/CF card
dd if=rustchain-dos-miner.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

# Or for MS-DOS version
dd if=rustchain-msdos.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

Boot vintage PC and type MINER for instructions

Features

• Auto-wallet generation from hardware entropy
• Hardware fingerprinting (BIOS, CPU, timer, RTC)
• 3.5x antiquity multiplier for ancient hardware!
• Network attestation via Watt-32 TCP/IP stack
• Offline mode for systems without networking
• Dev Fee: 0.001 RTC/epoch → founder_dev_fund

Requirements

Hardware

• 8086/286/386/486/Pentium CPU
• 640KB conventional memory minimum
• DOS 3.3+ or FreeDOS
• Network card with packet driver (optional)

Compilation

• DJGPP (32-bit protected mode, recommended)
• Watt-32 library for networking
• Or Turbo C for 16-bit real mode (limited features)

Compilation

# With DJGPP + Watt-32
gcc -o miner.exe rustchain_dos_miner.c -lwatt

# Entropy collector only (Turbo C)
tcc entropy_dos.c

Usage

C:\> MINER.EXE

1. First run generates wallet (saved to WALLET.TXT)
2. BACKUP WALLET.TXT TO FLOPPY!
3. Miner runs attestation loop every 10 minutes
4. Press 'S' for status, 'Q' or ESC to quit

Files

File	Description
rustchain_dos_miner.c	Full miner with networking
entropy_dos.c	Standalone entropy collector
WALLET.TXT	Generated wallet (SAVE THIS!)
MINER.CFG	Configuration file

Antiquity Multiplier

CPU Class	Era	Multiplier
8086/8088	1978-1982	4.0x
286	1982-1985	3.8x
386	1985-1989	3.5x
486	1989-1993	3.0x
Pentium	1993-1997	2.5x

Network Setup

1. Load packet driver for your NIC:

   NE2000.COM 0x60 3 0x300
   

2. Configure Watt-32 (wattcp.cfg):

   my_ip = dhcp
   

3. Run miner - it will auto-detect network

Offline Mode

Without network, miner saves attestations to ATTEST.TXT. Transfer this file to a networked computer to submit.

License

• RustChain Miner: Part of RustChain - Elyan Labs 2025
• MS-DOS 4.0: Microsoft Corporation - MIT License (open sourced April 2024)
• FreeDOS: FreeDOS Project - GPL

MS-DOS Source

The MS-DOS edition uses genuine Microsoft source code from: https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS

Microsoft open-sourced MS-DOS 4.0 in April 2024 under the MIT license, allowing redistribution and modification for any purpose.