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Running Windows 98 in the Browser

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Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#11

Post by tonoto »

herbst wrote: post #4
nippoo wrote: post #3

The thing that always strikes me with these kinds of demos is how absurdly efficient old OSs were / had to be. It's obviously not an apples to apples comparison, as modern operating systems have to handle a lot more, but even Windows XP (which handled a lot of the same basic Internet browsing tasks as I still use now!) is almost comically fast on modern hardware.

It's a fair comparison IMO. There are Linux flavours still making my 15 year old hardware faster with every other update. And any standard flavor still works like a charm. There is no real reason OSes get more shitty with every version

But still, during the time of Windows 95/98 I could hardly play even a 128kbps MP3 with WinAmp in my Pentium 133MHz with 12MB of Ram where I had got rid of lots of bloatware. At the same time I could play it smoothly in Linux with a full blown desktop environment (Window Maker) running. So it was a bad performer in comparison even back then.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#12

Post by jraph »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #5
nippoo wrote: post #3

The thing that always strikes me with these kinds of demos is how absurdly efficient old OSs were / had to be. It's obviously not an apples to apples comparison, as modern operating systems have to handle a lot more, but even Windows XP (which handled a lot of the same basic Internet browsing tasks as I still use now!) is almost comically fast on modern hardware.

>but even Windows XP (which handled a lot of the same basic Internet browsing tasks as I still use now!) is almost comically fast on modern hardware. Why is it surprising that an old OS built for late 90's hardware runs "comically fast" on 2020's hardware? Just look at XP system requirements: - Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended) - At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is reco…

I tried XP on a PII 333 MHz laptop with 96 MB of RAM. This laptop came with Windows 95 or 98. It still works by the way.

It ran, but it was quite slow. Windows 2000 managed better. Windows 98 even more, but internet on Windows 98, maybe not the best thing to do. Linux even more.

I can't see 233 MHz and 64 MB being reasonable minima, more like very bare minima as in "it boots".

(of course, this does not contradict anything essential from your comment)

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#15

Post by liotier »

tonoto wrote: post #11
herbst wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fair comparison IMO. There are Linux flavours still making my 15 year old hardware faster with every other update. And any standard flavor still works like a charm. There is no real reason OSes get more shitty with every version

But still, during the time of Windows 95/98 I could hardly play even a 128kbps MP3 with WinAmp in my Pentium 133MHz with 12MB of Ram where I had got rid of lots of bloatware. At the same time I could play it smoothly in Linux with a full blown desktop environment (Window Maker) running. So it was a bad performer in comparison even back then.

Let's not exaggerate: Winamp .mp3 playback was just fine on any Pentium running Windows 9x - though I concede that even my Pentium 75 had 16 MB RAM and I have never seen a Pentium with less than that.

On the other hand, extracting a CD and compressing it's .wav to .mp3 was a whole day of computing, and sending the files as attachments through SMTP was enough to elicit flowery vehement objections from my university's sysadmins and my friend's small ISP alike...

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#16

Post by bzzzt »

tonoto wrote: post #11
herbst wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fair comparison IMO. There are Linux flavours still making my 15 year old hardware faster with every other update. And any standard flavor still works like a charm. There is no real reason OSes get more shitty with every version

But still, during the time of Windows 95/98 I could hardly play even a 128kbps MP3 with WinAmp in my Pentium 133MHz with 12MB of Ram where I had got rid of lots of bloatware. At the same time I could play it smoothly in Linux with a full blown desktop environment (Window Maker) running. So it was a bad performer in comparison even back then.

Strange. I used a dual boot configuration back in the day and found the Windows experience a lot more efficient than the Linux desktop then. It was less stable and secure of course, but Linux drivers were not really optimized and if you wanted a comparable desktop feel you needed something like KDE which needed a lot more memory and felt sluggish compared to Windows. Also, there was rapid development in MP3 decoders at the time, they went from requiring about 100% of the CPU to less than 10% on about every Pentium system.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#18

Post by corethree »

Aardwolf wrote: post #17

Amazingly, opening google.com in the internet explorer browser worked after running the "networking.bat" from the desktop Many other pages don't load, possibly non supported https standards

Navigate to the same site. Run windows from a browser within windows running on the browser.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#19

Post by jraph »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #8
creshal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic desktop interaction is the same as 22 years ago, yet modern desktop environments are orders of magnitude slower at performing those same basic tasks.

Sure, but how is it surprising that an old OS built for late 90's hardware runs fast on 2020's hardware? I'm failing to see the surprise. Isn't it a a given that old SW runs faster on modern HW when you factor in how far HW evolved since then.

OP used the phrase "strikes me", that's not quite the same as being surprised.

Something can strike you without you being surprised.

For instance the amount of ads on youtube when it's running on a smart TV at someone else's always strikes me, but I'm not in the least surprised.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#20

Post by gwervc »

nippoo wrote: post #3

The thing that always strikes me with these kinds of demos is how absurdly efficient old OSs were / had to be. It's obviously not an apples to apples comparison, as modern operating systems have to handle a lot more, but even Windows XP (which handled a lot of the same basic Internet browsing tasks as I still use now!) is almost comically fast on modern hardware.

Even functionally it's very comical because of how we were able to do on Win98 (even 95) almost everything we are doing today: editing documents, browsing the web (with images), playing games, watching videos, printing documents, listening to music.

The only functional improvements I can note over two decades are: Unicode support, higher resolution of everything (from hardware to content), and system reliability thanks to driver isolation.

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