I wonder why they were never able to replicate the same level of "virtualization" they managed with Windows 3.11 / Dos while running win9x-based OSes - like mounting a folder as the root drive or a cd rom drive. I guess at that point it would become simply a clone of the wine environment while using the original os binaries instead?
While I completely agree with you -- that's what I would want too, I want Win98 without the pain, click or type and it's there, it's a very 2025 expectation -- I laughed because of the huge disparity between this and what installing DOS and Windows were really like. Part of the experience is selecting drivers and configuration :D (Even better in DOS with the IRQs and config.sys and whatnot.)
PCem does it relatively pain free; also emulates voodoo 2 so you can play GPU accelerated games on it. The network is pig-slow and i haven't figured out why, though. All in all PCem is the exact amount of jank and awesome to use for retro-emulation.
it emulates ~8086 through Pentium II or so. maybe a bit further on both sides; my machine struggled to maintain 100% emulation speed with the highest end CPU selected.
I agree with that, but then I tried the setup, and i found it was straightforward.
playing with it gives you a sense of mastery (even if small), is satisfying, and may be the necessary "training" to get used to using/installing/configuring the full windows 98.
How is it even doing this? A full DOS/Windows 9x environment—running on an M1 Mac?? On so many architectures and OSes? With a ton of options, yet somehow everything just works—games, operating systems, all of it. Like a time machine you can configure. Seriously cool
i got windows 98 networking working (on macos needs sudo dosbox-x) and browsed google from ie 5. most websites will not work (due to TLS/cipher mismatch).
i want to write a very thin, old JS client for BrowserBox to let you connect to bbx running on local network so that old OS like this can browse the modern web.
W98SE was the last windows that actually felt polished to me. Also I had the feeling that while using it (a fresh install) my computer was faster than with any other windows versions from around that time.
Later windows came with different looks, UI toolkits, ribbons, and what nots. It became a messy UI. And what the NT-stack was probably better in all kinds of ways, it always felt like it was slowing things down...
I wonder why they were never able to replicate the same level of "virtualization" they managed with Windows 3.11 / Dos while running win9x-based OSes - like mounting a folder as the root drive or a cd rom drive. I guess at that point it would become simply a clone of the wine environment while using the original os binaries instead?
Just a note: this is not something new, this is well-explored, you can even run Windows 98 in the web version of DOSBox-X - see https://github.com/nbarkhina/doswasmx?tab=readme-ov-file#ins...
The software is very impressive...
But I think could do with usability improvements, for example typing 'dosbox win98.iso' at a prompt should end up with me at the win98 desktop.
All the config should be auto detected and auto set unless overridden.
While I completely agree with you -- that's what I would want too, I want Win98 without the pain, click or type and it's there, it's a very 2025 expectation -- I laughed because of the huge disparity between this and what installing DOS and Windows were really like. Part of the experience is selecting drivers and configuration :D (Even better in DOS with the IRQs and config.sys and whatnot.)
PCem does it relatively pain free; also emulates voodoo 2 so you can play GPU accelerated games on it. The network is pig-slow and i haven't figured out why, though. All in all PCem is the exact amount of jank and awesome to use for retro-emulation.
it emulates ~8086 through Pentium II or so. maybe a bit further on both sides; my machine struggled to maintain 100% emulation speed with the highest end CPU selected.
I agree with that, but then I tried the setup, and i found it was straightforward.
playing with it gives you a sense of mastery (even if small), is satisfying, and may be the necessary "training" to get used to using/installing/configuring the full windows 98.
How is it even doing this? A full DOS/Windows 9x environment—running on an M1 Mac?? On so many architectures and OSes? With a ton of options, yet somehow everything just works—games, operating systems, all of it. Like a time machine you can configure. Seriously cool
i got windows 98 networking working (on macos needs sudo dosbox-x) and browsed google from ie 5. most websites will not work (due to TLS/cipher mismatch).
i want to write a very thin, old JS client for BrowserBox to let you connect to bbx running on local network so that old OS like this can browse the modern web.
W98SE was the last windows that actually felt polished to me. Also I had the feeling that while using it (a fresh install) my computer was faster than with any other windows versions from around that time.
Later windows came with different looks, UI toolkits, ribbons, and what nots. It became a messy UI. And what the NT-stack was probably better in all kinds of ways, it always felt like it was slowing things down...
interesting