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Windows 98SE emulated on Pocket PC
David Horn writes "PocketGamer is carrying a story on the successful emulation of Windows 95 and Windows 98SE on the Pocket PC. This was made possible by a Pocket PC port of Bochs, a DOS emulator. If you're keen to try this yourself, you'll need a minimum of a 256MB memory card (or stream the image over a wireless network) and you'll need a program like Nyditot Virtual Display to increase your screen resolution. Oh, yes, and you'll also need the emulator. You can find more information and a selection of screenshots here. Following the porting of a full speed Playstation emulator and Pocket Quake, this really raises the bar for what the Pocket PC is capable of."
From the website:
Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS.
This was made possible by a Pocket PC port of Bochs, a DOS emulator.
Not quite. Bochs is a IA-32 (x86) emulator that allows other architectures (such as ARM commonly used in handheld devices) to emulate a IA-32 chip.
)9TSS
Pocket Quake uses Quake's software renderer.
However ATI did comission me to port GLQuake to Pocket PC to conform to OpenGL ES. However the source code is not available (as we have not distributed - only demoed - the binary).
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Bochs homepage
The article contains several misleading statements. Bochs is not a Windows 98 emulator (nor is it a DOS emulator). It is an x86 emulator. Running Windows 98 within the emulator is just a way of showing off what it can do. Much better than boring VGA text mode screenshots of DOS, which would not have gotten mention here at SlashDot.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
And here you go for screenshots: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~tzer-jen/zbochs/
Bochs on Zaurus Software Index.
I ran bochs (but not windows, not a large enough flash card at the time). It was slow (hey, no suprise there), & I wouldn't want to run windows, but it was possible, and didn't need some hack like increasing screen resolution (something sdl handled). Of course, with the new Zauruses, you wouldn't have to increase the resolution, either via OS hacks, or SDL scaling.
Mirror of the screenshots here
They are actual size, due to small pocketpc screen I presume..
What you're probably really looking for is an X Server (X clients are the applications that use X to display graphics).
A google search for "X Server PocketPC" gives me this site, which lists a WinCE port of a XFree86.
Alternatively, you could use a VNC, which would be more useful for OS X if you were wanting access to Aqua applications, too.
(No clue how well either of these work; I'm a PalmOS guy.)
Pocket PC port of Bochs, a DOS emulator.
uhhh, dont you mean x86 emulator?
bochs can handle more than just dos.
Yes. However, someone should try running Windows98 under QEMU. QEMU can emulate an x86 host now (I installed Windows Server 2003 under QEMU and it worked fine; it was usuable in speed), and it runs on ARM machines. Bochs isn't really good for much anymore, QEMU beats it in everything.
(In case you're wondering QEMU can emulate PREP and x86 hosts and run on ARM, PPC, x86, SPARC, and more. It can also translate (for example) Linux/x86 binaries to run on PPC so you can use wine on a PPC. As I said, it's really really cool. Take a look at their site or the OS Support Table. Have fun!)
My other car is first.
Actually you can already run Linux on your favourite Pocket PCs (if there is such a thing), the hp/compaq iPAQs, generally the older Compaq H3600, H3800 and H3900 series accept it.
Unfortunately some of these (there are several) projects seem to be defunct, in any case I fail to see the reason to convert a perfectly normal PPC to a crippled handheld running linux with applications not designed for it. If you need linux, I'd go for the Sharp Zaurus, sweet machines albeit underpowered, and frankly, not NEARLY as polished.
Windows 98 emulation on run-of-the-mill PPCs such as iPAQ 3950, Toshiba e740 or Dell Axim 3xi is a bit impractical however in my opinion, since
1) low resolution
2) low functionality
3) too slow
4) did I mention low functionality?
5) expensive memory expansion (Secure Digital cards only for most iPAQs, and Compact flash for Toshiba/Dells)
I applaud the technical level at which this experiment was taken, but like the linux hacks, this is a waste of time on a practical level, unless you need to run Solitaire desktop edition...
To elaborate on speed, for those not familiar with the Pocket PC operating system (Windows Pocket PC 2002 and WMobile 2003), both are platforms based on Windows CE, 2003 being on CE.NET 4.2 and 2002 on CE 3.0; in short, 2003 is optimized for the Xscale CPUs, currently the top rated ARM-compatible cpus for handhelds, 2002 is not. Running Windows 98 in emulation mode would be a pain in 2003, much less in 2002, my 3950(PXA250, initial xscale cpu) can handle the TI-89 emulator, barely, so I'd hate to see what it would do with Windows. (gross generalization). Of course, there are faster models out there with better CPUs, PXA255 (Xscale with double membus), PXA262 (PXA255 with NAND mem 32mb) and PXA270 which hits up to 600mhz so far...In any case, to reiterate, praises to the developers
http://www.epinions.com/pr-Casio_Cassiopeia_Fiva_M PC-501_PC_Notebook/display_~full_specs
6.7" TFT Active Matrix touchscreen at 800x600x16bpp (64K colors) and it came the with Microsoft Windows 98 OS back in the year 2000.
http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
:)
Its free as in speech (GPL), runs natively on Linux, Windows, BSD, and MacOSX now.
Sure its based on the 3DO Port, but with --cscan=pc --menu=pc it plays like an enhanced PC version.
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