Windows 95 … in a web browser

Windows 95 has already been launched on Nintendo 3DS or on smartwatches. This is not the end, however. A nineteen-year-old student and “occasional programmer” Andrea Faulds made quite an unusual feat – she managed to convert the system … so that it would run in a web browser. To convert the system software so that it can run a browser capable of using JavaScript, the project uses emscripten – to run it, no plugins or extensions installed on the disk are needed. The system can boot up in a few minutes – this is the time needed to move the 47 megabyte compressed system to RAM, among other things.

How it’s working? Windows 95 OSR2 was installed in DOSBox, then the disk image was packed with a custom configuration file so that it could run with emscripten. Faulds claims that “all the hard work was done by the people behind emscripten, DOSBox, and Em-DOSBox,” and the browser makers, and she just put it all together.

A very large part of the website where the Windows 95 browser is located is devoted to copyright issues – use it “at your own risk” and “for educational purposes only”. It also says that the system is still copyrighted, and the developer expects to receive an email shortly with an explicit request to disable the site. Then win95.ajf.me is to be shut down immediately. So if someone wants to test it all out of curiosity, better do it as soon as possible.

[źródło i grafika: hexus.net]