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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."
I really dont understand the point in having old systems emulated on an old platform
that's my word, holla...
Why do this? Like so many of these very cool geek projects, they do it because they can.
Jeff
Jesus christ, dude. Is there a use to ANY hobby? Is there a use to collecting stamps? I sure can't think of any. Is there a purpose to playing miniature golf? People playing mini golf certainly are not helping to cure cancer or fight drug abuse. Why do people play miniature golf? BECAUSE THEY FUCKING WANT TO. God damn. Why fucking do anything? Just because you do not find something useful or entertaining or beneficial DOES NOT mean that it is not useful or entertaining or beneficial to everyone else. Grow up.
It's the PC that was emulated - not the operating system.
If you buy a full retail version of Windows then you can do whatever the hell you want with it. It is not tied to any particular machine. However, OEM versions of Windows that come installed on computers are usually tied to whatever computer it was originally installed on. Although Microsoft isn't directly producing and selling windows 95/98/ME anymore, I believe there are still places that have legal copies for sale. There are certainly many many copies that people bought back in the day but they are not using anymore. Also, what is wrong with doing something just to say, "Hey, look at this!"? This may also pave the way for other, more useful projects, so this project may not be entirely useless.
The biggest limitation I can think of is the speed. I can't imagine that Win98 being run on an emulator could be anywhere near fast enough to play games, DirectX or otherwise.
--This is a self-referential sig--
You are missing the point. Bochs is free software. Running Bocks on another platform (PocketPC) is an achievement of free software. It's not so important what operating system runs in the emulator. Actually, the fact that Bochs is good enough to run an close source, buggy OS only underlines the quality of PC emulation in Bochs. I'm sure Bochs will easily run other OSes as well.
Why do posts like this always come up when a neat hack is featured? How many times does it have to be said? Stuff like this isn't out there to be "useful", it's out there for people like me who think its just cool. Nothing more, nothing less.
John Susek
"Because it can be done" is actually a great reason only about 4% of the time it gets used.
"Is a Windows 95/98 port to the PocketPC a very usefull tool ?"
Not sure about the tool part, but I really would enjoy playing a bunch of my old DOS'ish games on it like the Space Quest series. Also, it'd be slick if I could run Photoshop on a handheld unit with a stylus. Though I ache for more pixels in the display.
The question shouldn't be "is it useful", but rather, "how can it be useful". More interesting results that way.
"Derp de derp."
It's a PC emulator.
You cannot run Linux on DOS.
-- When did Ignorance Become a Point of View?