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Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

retrotick.com

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Re: Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

#21

Post by lqs_ »

Tepix wrote: post #10

Tried it with REVERSI.EXE from Windows 3.0 from https://winworldpc.com/download/c2bbc28f-177a-c2b2-5311-c3a4... DISK02.IMG (you have to first uncompress it, for example with 7zip). $ sha256sum REVERSI.EXE a9e319c8f479d1568beec03858fdbb27c71747b2bbed6cd7c9f5e2daa23b40e9 REVERSI.EXE Result: The game starts, it begins rendering the board, but then hangs.

Win16 GDI support is still pretty incomplete. There's a lot of work left to do there.

Re: Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

#22

Post by lqs_ »

jeroenhd wrote: post #8

Seems to run a lot faster than the previous proof-of-concept I've found ( https://www.boxedwine.org/app ). Then again, that website runs an entire Linux VM to support Wine.

RetroTick's CPU emulation is actually slower than JIT-based emulators. It feels fast because the Win32 API calls are native JavaScript, not emulated system calls.

Re: Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

#23

Post by lqs_ »

chromehearts wrote: post #3

This is so cool & I'm really amazed by it but I couldn't help laugh at the readme > We strongly recommend contributing with Claude Code or similar AI coding tools. [...] Of course, coding by hand is also welcome. Funny time we live in lol

Ha — even the README itself was written by AI, including that very sentence. Funny times indeed.

Re: Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

#25

Post by lqs_ »

Hidden feature: right-click any executable and select "View Resources" to browse its embedded resources like icons, bitmaps, dialogs, and version info. It even supports viewing Delphi forms (though Delphi programs can't actually run yet). Think of it as a browser-based Resource Hacker or eXeScope.

Re: Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

#26

Post by lqs_ »

butokai wrote: post #24

Just a couple of hours ago I was thinking about this project from some time ago doing the same thing: https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32 I wondered how much of this could be done with an LLM agent, and here we have the answer

I actually contributed to retrowin32 to get Solitaire running there. Back then the only AI tool available was Copilot, and it took me several days just to get the main window showing, without menus or dialogs.

The current state of RetroTick was achieved in less than one hour using Claude Code.

Re: Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

#27

Post by lqs_ »

ale42 wrote: post #15

Funny project... Tried to run SHELL from QBASIC, but it crashes: D:\qbasic.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. Reason: illegal instruction Address: 0x00002fee

DOS interrupt support is still limited. Running SHELL would essentially require implementing a full MS-DOS COMMAND.COM, which is a significant undertaking.

Re: Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

#30

Post by stuaxo »

lqs_ wrote: post #27
ale42 wrote: post #15

Funny project... Tried to run SHELL from QBASIC, but it crashes: D:\qbasic.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. Reason: illegal instruction Address: 0x00002fee

DOS interrupt support is still limited. Running SHELL would essentially require implementing a full MS-DOS COMMAND.COM, which is a significant undertaking.

Ralph browns interrupt list could go a long way to getting stuff working.
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