
Show HN: Windows 95 in an Electron App - felixrieseberg
https://github.com/felixrieseberg/windows95
======
alxlaz
Glad to see an Electron application that _finally_ has a decent, native-
looking, unsurprising UI :-).

(Edit: sadly, I'm only half-joking. I was thinking about how fun it would be
to extend this so as to bridge the host and the guest via e.g. a socket, so
that I could get notifications about UI events inside the machine on the host,
which would give me Visual Basic 6's UI builder and all the greatness of a
21st century machine, so that I could finally whip up an UI without yelling
profanities at the CSS reference and in less than umpteen hours of tinkering
with stuff that _clearly_ just wasn't built for this. Thing is, halfway
through, I really began thinking this might make sense a little and that
depresses me. /done editing)

That being said, if anyone's curious what else can be achieved in this manner,
there's a bunch of nice demos here:
[https://github.com/copy/v86](https://github.com/copy/v86) .

~~~
meredydd
_> give me Visual Basic 6's UI builder and all the greatness of a 21st century
machine, so that I could finally whip up an UI without yelling profanities at
the CSS reference [...] that clearly just wasn't built for this_

Can I interest you in a VB6-y design/code/deploy tool with no CSS or JS? It's
all in Python, even in-browser: [https://anvil.works](https://anvil.works)

~~~
johnhattan
Also the Lazarus Pascal IDE is still around and is keeping the old-school VB
flame alive. Just looking at the screenshots will make you nostalgic.

[https://www.lazarus-ide.org/](https://www.lazarus-ide.org/)

~~~
rzzzt
iBasic is, however, on permanent hiatus:
[http://basic.mindteq.com/index.php?i=88](http://basic.mindteq.com/index.php?i=88)

------
SmellyGeekBoy
A whole OS and it's still on the relatively small side for an Electron app...

~~~
ct520
LOLLL

------
ihuman
"The Birth & Death of JavaScript" keeps getting more and more real

~~~
TimTheTinker
Link for the uninitiated: [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-
and-death...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-
javascript)

Reference in above comment is to the future “metal architecture” Gary starts
detailing about halfway through.

Gary Bernhardt’s presentations are always masterfully done. This one is
particularly funny.

~~~
jwilk
On HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7605687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7605687)

------
jannes
37 MB for the deb package... Wow. That's incredibly small compared to some
other Electron apps.

~~~
sudhirj
Well, yeah. It's just a complete operating system with an all new GUI that
completely revolutionized the world of computing. It's not like it can send
emoji to your co-workers.

~~~
jakamau
When you contextualize it like that it makes sense - emacs is something like
38MB.

~~~
WalterGR
The default distribution of Emacs 26.1 x64 for Windows is 677 MB.

Emacs 26.1 for Mac, built from code via `brew install emacs-mac` is 136 MB.

------
nategri
* me, crying *

Please, no, you can't just Electron everything

* hacker news points at Windows 95 *

Electron'd

------
honkycat
Does anyone have a BonziBuddy download link?

------
igolden
"Should this have been a native app?" \- "Absolutely" lol. love it. Brings
back all the nostalgia.

------
sciurus
This is based on the javascript x86 emulator
[https://github.com/copy/v86/](https://github.com/copy/v86/) , which has demos
online running many older operations systems like Windows 1.01

------
xhrpost
Awesome. Immediately tried to jump into DOS by running 'command' and managed
to break it.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
Let me know when you get DOS running. Then we can work getting MechCommander
working w/ SoundBlaster-compatible music.

~~~
Endy
I think this already works in DOSBox .74 with MechCommander Gold.

------
AdmiralAsshat
There _should_ be some practical purpose for this, like some Win-95 only app I
loved from my childhood that I can now experience again. But I struggle to
think of any.

~~~
vortico
If Microsoft does one thing right, it's backward compatibility. After all,
Windows is the operating system running old nuclear codes, hospital monitors,
army navigation systems, etc unchanged from the 90's. So your retro games will
play just fine on the latest version.

VirtualBox or QEMU will run Windows 95 more "natively" if you need serious
Windows 95 emulation.

~~~
ekianjo
> Microsoft does one thing right, it's backward compatibility

Except for games. Between XP and 7 many games broke, and the same thing
happened again between 7 and 10. There are numerous examples out there.

~~~
jchw
In fairness, they painted themselves into a corner with intracate APIs
designed to skip the normal hardware abstraction layers. It probably takes a
ton of effort just to keep old DirectX APIs working through architectural
changes.

Also, supporting 16 bit software in long mode requires emulation, and they
chose not to.

------
tonyle
Now we can bring back html based applications using html and vbscript and
jscript.

[https://www.599cd.com/tips/hta/beginner/B1/](https://www.599cd.com/tips/hta/beginner/B1/)

------
jacob019
Has Win95's copyright expired?

~~~
beefhash
No, it hasn't. Copyright expires a couple of decades after the death of
the/all author/s.

~~~
vanviegen
So can I assume that any self-respecting company producing IP has an army of
toddlers 'working' on its products? ;-)

~~~
Endy
Or that the company itself is legally the author.

------
f055
Now I can test my websites on this old IE again!

~~~
Endy
In other words, now you can make decent websites instead of garbage! You're
right, that makes this whole thing worth it!

------
tambourine_man
I’d love a version of this running classic macOS versions (7,8 and 9)

~~~
ksherlock
You could run System 7 via Executor under Windows 95.

~~~
tambourine_man
I wasn’t aware of Executor, fascinating. Thanks.

------
sbjs
I love traditional simplistic UIs like Win95 for their retro feel, and miss
the days when you could skin apps. That ship probably sailed by now, but at
least we get projects like this every once in a while.

But isn't Windows 95 not allowed to be used unless you purchase a license?

~~~
Someone1234
> But isn't Windows 95 not allowed to be used unless you purchase a license?

Technically yes.

Legally Microsoft has the absolute right to stop people hosting Windows 95's
files for download/re-distribution. I'm guessing they choose not to since it
is not-for-profit, and the cost of going after violators will be more than
they make from sales.

------
karulont
I was surprised. Completely on a different topic though.

I noticed that emoticons were used in git commit message titles as a prefix. I
did not know that github rendered those. And using CLI it is still readable:

    
    
      :wrench: One more Forge fix
    

EDIT: formatting

------
fiiv
It's all about that SOL.EXE

~~~
quickthrower2
That was running slow for me, so I defragged the drive.

------
niutech
What is a rationale for an Electron app when there has long been an online
version of Windows 95? [https://win95.ajf.me](https://win95.ajf.me)

~~~
kirinrastogi
Can't you say this about 90% of electron apps?

------
graycrow
I just restarted it via Start Menu and it won't start anymore. Bug?

------
digi_owl
The layers of VMs and interpreters involved in this gives me vertigo...

------
lenova
This has made my day.

------
nojvek
Sucks that "Internet Explorer" can't browse websites. I just want to open aol,
geocities, altavista may be?

------
rcshubhadeep
This brought back so much of nostalgia ...

Thanks, man! Thanks a lot!!

------
smpetrey
This is simply delicious.

------
rainbowmverse
Is this vaporwave?

