Watch Windows 95 running on the Apple Watch

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Nick Lee of Tendigi Insights has managed to install Windows 95 on a Apple Watch. Apple Watch is powered by a a 520 MHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage, so it has power to run Windows 95. Nick thought this processor alone is about twenty-five times faster than the average 386, and 512 MB was the size of a hard drive in the mid nineties. Check out how Windows 95 runs on Apple Watch in the video above.

How he installed Windows 95 on Apple Watch:

  • Copy symbols and headers from Xcode’s iphoneOS and iphoneSimulator platforms to the watchOS and watchSimulator platforms, respectively.
  • Build your “normal” UIKit-based iOS app inside a framework, rather than in your WatchKit extension.
  • Use install_name_tool to point your WatchKit app’s _WatchKitStub/WK binary to your framework instead of SockPuppetGizmo. SockPuppetGizmo is the framework that (to my knowledge) runs WatchKit and interacts with normal WatchKit extensions that developers write.
  • Jury-rig the iOS port of the Bochs x86 emulator into your framework. “Easy!” “How hard can it be?” read: Pretty hard. In my case, Xcode crashed whenever I tried to use lldb. Your mileage may vary.
  • Copy a Windows 95 disk image in to your app’s bundle, write the config file, and boot ‘er up.

More about the topics: Apple Watch, microsoft, windows 95, Windows on Apple Watch

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