Microsoft By Lee Mathews Oct. 6, 2014 10:28 am
Most people who go shopping for a smartwatch aren’t thinking about whether or not it can run Windows 95. Fortunately for us, that’s precisely the kind of question some geeks like to answer once they’ve gotten bored using things like the Galaxy Gear as their makers intended.
What you see above is Corbin Davenport’s Samsung smartwatch, and that’s not just a still image on its display. That’s Windows 95 chugging through the boot process — slowly, mind you, but it really is starting up.
The smartwatch tomfoolery was pulled off by first loading aDosBox onto the Gear. It’s not a perfect solution, but then it’s hard to imagine what would be a perfect solution for putting an OS that’s nearly 20 years old onto a wrist-sized wearable with a 1.65-inch display. It is, nevertheless, fun to see in action:
Windows 95 is anything but stable on the Gear; blue screens are plentiful and programs are constantly running out of RAM. Davenport notes that if the version of aDosBox he used allowed the configuration file to be modified then grabbing a bigger chunk of the Galaxy Gear’s 512MB of RAM might be possible — and that might make things a bit more usable.
And you really can’t ever hope to make an OS such as Windows 95 that usable on a device like the Galaxy Gear. Davenport’s awesome demo is all in good fun, and at the very least it proves that there are ways to make smartwatches even less useful than they currently are… which is good to know.
Now read: Learn how to use a computer by having your intelligence offended
More...
What you see above is Corbin Davenport’s Samsung smartwatch, and that’s not just a still image on its display. That’s Windows 95 chugging through the boot process — slowly, mind you, but it really is starting up.
The smartwatch tomfoolery was pulled off by first loading aDosBox onto the Gear. It’s not a perfect solution, but then it’s hard to imagine what would be a perfect solution for putting an OS that’s nearly 20 years old onto a wrist-sized wearable with a 1.65-inch display. It is, nevertheless, fun to see in action:
Windows 95 is anything but stable on the Gear; blue screens are plentiful and programs are constantly running out of RAM. Davenport notes that if the version of aDosBox he used allowed the configuration file to be modified then grabbing a bigger chunk of the Galaxy Gear’s 512MB of RAM might be possible — and that might make things a bit more usable.
And you really can’t ever hope to make an OS such as Windows 95 that usable on a device like the Galaxy Gear. Davenport’s awesome demo is all in good fun, and at the very least it proves that there are ways to make smartwatches even less useful than they currently are… which is good to know.
Now read: Learn how to use a computer by having your intelligence offended
More...
