I compiled a list of in browser VMs which includes this one https://gist.github.com/SMUsamaShah/6379649c0cbade9abc02b242...
Running Windows 98 in the Browser
61–70 of 161 posts
Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser
#62Wow, we live in a time where I can run Windows 98 in my browser on my phone.
Technology has really come a long way since the olden days. (And I wasn't even there for the olden days!)
Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser
#63Earlier 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…
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 an…
>It ran, but it was quite slow.
That's how minimum specifications work. They're the minimum to run the OS, but nothing else.
Win11 has minimum requirements of 4GB of RAM but I doubt it can run anything with that.
Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows 2000 was memory protected, and still had very modest hardware requirements. IMO the pinnacle of Windows UX, everything after that was downhill.
If only it had a proper UNIX subsystem, instead of something to make DoD happy. That was Microsoft's biggest mistake regarding GNU/Linux adoption. I only cared about Slackware in 1995, because Windows NT POSIX wasn't enough for university work.
Windows Server 2003 with Interix was my daily driver for a few years. That was my "peak Windows" moment. It had a fast UI, could run software meant for XP, and I could compile a ton of POSIX-targeted software.
Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser
#65Earlier 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…
Alright, it might be that the memory fades and that it was OGG that I were struggling with, nevertheless the music playback worked way better in Linux. My issue I had were modelines/vertical refresh rate and having the graphics card recognized as it were my first computer and as a newbie with no friends to ask it felt rather steep to understand XFree86. But it was the IBM Aptiva K23 (basically this https://www.youtub…
OGG would make a lot more sense. Even back in the Pentium days I believe there were optimized integer decoders that would handily outperform OGG stuff which only had a floating point decoder. Wikipedia is showing the og Pentium at 0.5 FP ops per clock cycle vs 1.88 integer ops.
Of course by the time you get to the Core architecture you're in the opposite situation where Sandy Bridge is at 16 FP ops and 6.2 integer ops per clock cycle.
Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser
#66The 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
I was just amazed that my super old laptop could run youtube/games for my 2 year old. It had Windows but was too slow to really use.
Fedora Silverblue was too heavy, but MX Linux made that computer run like my main. No slowdowns ever. Moments like this make me wonder who/what is leading us.
Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser
#67Earlier 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.
I call bullshit. Windows 95/98/2000 did not have any bloatware....
My first "This is bloatware!" moment was when Win98 integrated Internet Explorer into the desktop shell. I didn't knew what bloatware was until then.
Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
QVPro? It's still on the internet! http://www.multimediaware.com/qv/
Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 an…
>It ran, but it was quite slow. That's how minimum specifications work. They're the minimum to run the OS, but nothing else. Win11 has minimum requirements of 4GB of RAM but I doubt it can run anything with that.
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Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 than…
Higher resolutions (and the accompanying resource sizes) would be hell for 32-bit OSes though. Also, it’s kind of amazing that many web pages these days are larger than Doom shareware’s zip size.
I ran a 1999-era machine well into the 2000s (I think 2007?) with Windows 98SE on 1600x1200 and it worked great, and faster than the XP computer I had.