Programmer Spends 6 Months Building 486 Motherboard from Scratch, Runs Linux, DOOM, and Win3.1 Successfully
https://eu.36kr.com/en/p/3656199586767238
Publish Date: 2026-01-26 08:53:00
Source Domain: eu.36kr.com
If your understanding of “handcrafting a motherboard” still stays at soldering a few modules and inserting a ready-made chip, then the latest work of programmer and electronics enthusiast Maniek86 might directly reshape your perception.
Recently, Maniek86 spent less than six months to design a complete and usable Intel 486 architecture motherboard from scratch. He started with drawing the schematic diagram, then designed the printed circuit board (PCB) and implemented the chipset logic by himself.
What’s more noteworthy is that it can not only run systems like Linux, MS-DOS, and FreeDOS stably, but also make classic games such as “Doom” and “Wolfenstein 3D” work. It can also successfully run Windows 3.1 under specific circumstances.
All this sounds like the result of a small team, but in fact, it’s all the work of Maniek86 alone. Moreover, to allow more enthusiasts to participate, Maniek86 has also open – sourced the project on GitHub (https://github.com/maniekx86/M8SBC – 486) for everyone to refer to.
It All Started with a “Small Goal”
Looking back, Maniek86’s initial idea wasn’t grand.
He said he just wanted to make a “retro motherboard that can run Linux” and then run “Doom” as a verification standard for performance and compatibility. After all, for hardware enthusiasts, “whether it can run DOOM” is like the “universal exam question” in the hardware circle.
But things soon started to “get out of control”.
In the process of continuously improving the design, Maniek86 found that as long as the working mode of the 486 was restored accurately, this board could not only “run one system” but also other interesting software.
The original toy project seemed to gradually turn into a complete PC replication experiment.
Not a “Modification”, but Starting from Scratch
On the project’s official website, Maniek86 shared the story of the project’s starting point.
In April 2025, Maniek86 made some optimizations to his previously self – made 486 computer on a prototype…
