Windows 1.0 emulator

http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows1

by agonzalezro • 11 years ago

95 39 11 years ago

copy.sh

agonzalezro• 11 years ago

It actually supports more profiles: http://copy.sh/v86/ (for example running a Solaris or an Arch Linux)

bunkydoo• 11 years ago

Fun :) thank you.

fsk• 11 years ago

You can run Windows 3.1/95/98 in DosBox.

TazeTSchnitzel• 11 years ago

I've ran Windows 3.1 in DOSBox before. I can't say it was a fun experience, it's not very stable. Trying to use The Way Things Work, a multimedia CD-ROM from Dorling Kindersley, would crash it occasionally.

If you want to run old Windows, I suggest a proper virtual machine.

ekianjo3• 11 years ago

Honestly QEmu is a better choice for this kind of things.

thom• 11 years ago

It's hard to get networking functional inside DosBox, but works pretty well beyond that. I use this for some old Windows games (Castle of the Winds etc) and other nostalgiaware (Visual Basic, AmiPro etc). :)

slipstream-• 11 years ago

Or PCem-X.

stormbrew• 11 years ago

Always a good reminder that tiling window managers have been around for a really long time.

jpetersonmn• 11 years ago

Pretty cool, mouse was way off for me in chrome.

lubos• 11 years ago

Same in Firefox but it's OK if you switch to full-screen mode.

ghgr• 11 years ago

That's also quite common in virtual machines. You just need to trap the cursor in a corner. Then, as long as you keep the mouse inside the window, both will be synchronized.

FreeFull2• 11 years ago

I haven't had them be synchronised even after doing that, the cursor inside the VM moved faster the host cursor. That's ok though, it'd be an issue if the cursor in the VM moved slower.

Edit: Just pressing the Lock Mouse button works very well. esc will remove the lock.

dchest• 11 years ago

Click "Lock mouse" button.

danjayh2• 11 years ago

Fun fact: Microsoft has maintained backwards compatibility so effectively that the utilities that shipped with windows 1.0 (notepad, calc, etc) will work on recent versions (search for 'man upgrades windows 1.0 to windows 7) ... say what you want about Microsoft, but if you've ever worked on operating systems, this is absolutely incredible.

ekianjo3• 11 years ago

When you have the source code available to recompile software, that "compatibility" issue disappears (like for most tools on Linux). It's simply a different approach.

Aldo_MX2• 11 years ago

If recompiling older sources were as straightforward as running older windows binaries in recent versions...

haberman• 11 years ago

I thought Linux also had a very strict ABI compatibility policy also.

Executable formats have changed some, and I don't know if recent Linux systems would support the a.out format of early Linux. And shared libraries change too. But if you had a fully-statically-linked binary (and enabled a.out support if necessary), I think Linux should also support very old binaries.

cbd19842• 11 years ago

I thought Linux also had a very strict ABI compatibility policy also.

Yes, it does.

But if you had a fully-statically-linked binary (and enabled a.out support if necessary), I think Linux should also support very old binaries.

And it does.

AReallyGoodName• 11 years ago

Windows 3.1 removed real mode support thus breaking compatibility with Windows 2 and Windows 1 apps.

What Microsoft did is replace various included applications completely with every upgrade. There's no compatibility. Things like notepad.exe for Windows 1 is simply replaced with a version made for Windows 3.1 when you upgrade. Likewise when you upgrade from 3.1 to 95.

You absolutely cannot run Windows 1 applications in modern day Windows. Heck the CPUs these days literally do not support real mode anymore. You can upgrade but that's really just a series of complete OS replacements in this case.

JoshTriplett• 11 years ago

Heck the CPUs these days literally do not support real mode anymore.

They do, actually; a brand new Core i7 still runs 16-bit real-mode and 32-bit real-mode.

Now, if you're running in 64-bit mode, there's no vm86 mode you can use to run 16-bit applications on a 64-bit kernel. However, the CPU still supports 16-bit real mode, and under a 32-bit kernel you can run 16-bit applications.

einr3• 11 years ago

You absolutely can run Windows 1 applications in modern day Windows, as long as it's the 32-bit version.

Here's a screenshot of Windows 8 (32-bit) running four different Windows 1.01 apps:

http://toastytech.com/guis/win816bit.png

pavlov• 11 years ago

Windows 3.1 removed real mode support thus breaking compatibility with Windows 2 and Windows 1 apps.

That's just not true. Windows 3.1 removed real-mode support in Windows itself -- in other words, the last version you can run on a 8086 CPU is Windows 3.0.

But pre-3.0 16-bit Windows apps certainly didn't stop working.

Also, present-day x86 CPUs definitely can run real-mode software using virtual 8086 mode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_8086_mode

This is the same mode that Windows 3.x used to run multiple real-mode DOS apps simultaneously on a 386 processor.

einr3• 11 years ago

Also, it is true that Windows Setup would replace old bundled applications with the upgraded versions (otherwise it wouldn't really be an upgrade,) but if you had older applications that didn't come with the new OS (REVERSI.EXE was no longer available in Windows 3.1, there was no CARDFILE.EXE in Windows 95, and so forth) Setup would just leave them alone, and they would run happily on the new OS.

There were some exceptions to this; I remember as a kid upgrading my 486 from Windows 3.1 to 95 for the first time, and being disappointed that Setup replaced Paintbrush and Write with Paint and Wordpad, because I liked Paintbrush better. It actually replaced PBRUSH.EXE and WRITE.EXE with dummy EXE:s that would just launch MSPAINT.EXE and WORDPAD.EXE instead. These dummy files are still in recent Windows versions for compatibility with stuff like ancient apps that create shortcuts to launch Write with their docs.

It was trivial to retrieve PBRUSH.EXE from Windows 3.1 install media, however, and it works fine on Windows 95 as well as every subsequent 32-bit Windows.

adam12• 11 years ago

I wish they did the same with the xbox.

guyzero• 11 years ago

Pretty amazing. All it needs now is a copy of Balance of Power.

mapmap• 11 years ago

I was just now trying to figure out how to get the 1990 edition running on my mac.

jug• 11 years ago

Gotta love those bold colors, and the flat Modern UI interface way ahead of its time.

Now, if you excuse me, I'll turn on some 80's music on Spotify while I'm playing with this.

sjtechie• 11 years ago

Does it take down your computer when it bluescreens?

Windows 1.0 emulator

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