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Running Windows 98 in the Browser

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Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#41

Post by liotier »

znpy wrote: post #31
liotier wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ah the times when the netiquette dictated not to attach large files to emails directed to mailing lists, but to upload them to some ftp server and only paste the link… The whole industry was had more attention to performance and resources consumption.

Netiquette aside, a bunch of .mp3 as SMTP attachments hogged the single 64 kb/s that was my whole school's single link to the Internet and they entirely filled the receiving side's mail server storage, resulting in an outage... Both valid basis for criticism of my obnoxious behaviour in 1996 !

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#42

Post by mips_r4300i »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #21
creshal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main downside is that those OSes were also really quick to hack, and the smallest problem bluescreen'd the system and lost all your work. But you can get a reasonably close experience with Linux or the BSDs and a simple GUI environment like the *box window managers. They're modern and snappy even on things like older generation RasPis.

Windows 2000 was memory protected, and still had very modest hardware requirements. IMO the pinnacle of Windows UX, everything after that was downhill.

Win2k was peak windows. Though, it did need a lot more RAM than 98 did - it was happy only at 128mb, and 256mb was optimal. Meanwhile, 98 could run most things all day at 64meg.

98's swap and caching agent was definitely not as good as 2k though. You absolutely had to reboot at least daily or the chance of hitting swap would only increase upwards.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#43

Post by gattilorenz »

exitb wrote: post #40
darksim905 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call bullshit. Windows 95/98/2000 did not have any bloatware....

I remember being able to watch bootleg movies on a Windows 2000, while Windows 98 was too slow on the same hardware. I suspect that had nothing to do with bloatware, but rather some internal inefficiencies while dealing with heavy CPU/memory/IO load.

Hah! I remember watching the first Matrix as DivX on a P200MMX with a 14” Compaq CRT. I had to use a Dos movie player (without starting Windows), as in Windows 98 it was way too slow.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#44

Post by whoopdedo »

taspeotis wrote: post #36

3D Maze is there, I'm happy.

Where is that? I remember that being an extra on the CD-ROM but I don't see it mounted and can't remember the name of the file to search for it. If the CD is there somewhere, does that mean the Weezer music video should be there too.

And then I got a BSOD (Invalid VxD dynamic link call from VMM(06)+1D72 to device "C001" service E74) when I turned on the Underwater screen saver.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#45

Post by rafram »

blowski wrote: post #27
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Things I didn't use my 1998 PC for: * realtime collaborative spreadsheet editing * 28 inch high definition monitor * watching movies in HD * playing almost lifelike games * browsing an extremely hostile internet * live backing up all my files * Running large complex scripts on the same machine I can easily carry in one hand * Running an IDE like JetBrains I could go on. We are only doing the "same tasks" if you ignor…

Even the software that existed then has become an order of magnitude more capable. Try running 2023 Emacs or Microsoft Word on a 90s PC…

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#46

Post by steve1977 »

bluetomcat wrote: post #24
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.

The core OS APIs still allow writing fast and snappy applications, but most apps nowadays are not written this way. Apps are using generic libraries that bring "the gorilla and the jungle" with them, browsers are relying on a JIT to draw their own UI, etc.

This. I’m still using a couple of MFC or Win32 apps and using them is pure joy on a modern computer.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#49

Post by ta1243 »

liotier wrote: post #15
tonoto wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> sending the files as attachments through SMTP was enough to elicit flowery vehement objections from my university's sysadmins

The more things change....

OK they don't complain as much about 500kb attachments, but a lot of corporate direction for 20 years is about stopping that behaviour

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#50

Post by ta1243 »

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

not immediately clear how networking is done, but if you send traffic from the site it seems to come from a Digital Ocean VM
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