Weirdness: Homebrew Enthusiast Gets Windows 95 Working on the New Nintendo 3DS

Doesn't really show how well the OS runs. And what is the point of having this on a 3ds system?

@James_mussell98 ain't a f*****g clue, it's a bit like wii mc most video streaming doesn't work or it f*****g crashes half way through.

If I can't play LEGO island,It ain't a pc worth emulating.
BRICK BY BRICK - TOCK BY TICK!

There's a better video of OS boot sequence, where it actually finishes booting up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZTwTeFj9Ps
Nothing else can be done though, since mouse and proper keyboard support are not yet implemented.

Wow, another Steve Jobs.

Wow, so could we play DOS games? Tomb Raider on 3DS.... I can dream can't I?

@Pac-Fan
NO MATTER HOW THIN, NO MATTER HOW THICK!
MOMMA TOLD PAPA, AND PAPA TOLD NICK,
"YOU CAN DO IT DO IT, IF YOU DO IT BRICK BY BRICK!"

Not sure about the "DO IT DO IT" part but otherwise think I got the lyrics right. Used to play that game all the time when I was younger, and still go back to it sometimes just to break the game with the debug features!

Also, it actually runs on Windows 8, believe it or not. Just takes some tweaking of settings and copying the files from the CD onto the hardrive. This also prevents...

"WHOOPS! YOU NEED TO PUT THE CD IN YOUR COMPUTER!"

SkiFree is finally possible on the go thanks to the raw processing power of the New 3DS. It is a wondrous time to be alive.

Awesome. I know this wouldn't work, but I'd like to see them try to run a 3DS emulator on that Windows 95 OS.

Now show a working desktop and a game of Minesweeper.

@mystman12 Really?
How about windows 10?

@mystman12 Also *Laura told nick. xP

So we could play retro games such as Oregon Trail, Gizmos and Gadgets, and SimAnt on the New 3DS?

Get on this, Nintendo. (Even though it likely won't happen)

Only the 3rd New 3DS Exclusive...

If it can run windows 95 then it should be able to run windows 98.

XD @Stu13

"Just goes to show how far behind the times Nintendo is"

They have already booted up windows 98. Very slow though. It's better to use win95.

Yes we will be able to play Tomb Raider, Diablo, etc. And people think that this is useless. LOL

@GeminiSaint There is already a perfectly working 3DSX build of Minesweeper.

@Trinexx While you re waiting, you can play the SNES version of SimAnts on blarg for 3DS.

I would love to play some old games on this, but I doubt it will ever happen. Perhaps when wii u hacking is a thing.

@Trinexx @Moon : There has been a DOS emulator available for the original DS for years now (however, the developer hasn't updated it since 2012). It works great with older games from the 80s and early 90s, but I doubt that it would run the likes of Doom and Duke Nukem (at least at a playable frame rate), let alone a fully 3D game like Tomb Raider.

Hover and ski free!!!

@ThomasBW84: So far there is no proof of Windows 95 actually running, it only shows the bootscreen. I kindly confronted shutterbug2000 about this and so far he hasn't responded. One other commenter on youtube even suggested that it's not about the system actually running but that even the bootscreen itself would be an achievement.

At first, I was just kindly asking for real proof, which I was sure existed (I didn't doubt it).
But by now my doubt is growing bigger and bigger...

Hopefully it could run Minesweeper

It's common for hobbyists, & tinkerers to get older os(operating systems) running on modern hardware, sometimes for the challenge, sometimes for actual use, sometimes for testing, sometimes for fun, etc. So, this may be legit.

@Gridatttack: No, it's possible. From a programming perspective, I'm not familiar w/ DosBox. However, the emulator would probably need to be overall somewhat re-built, or totally, so it would better run on N3DS hardware. Once the emulator has been tweaked appropriately, it can run efficiently.

@crimsontadpoles: That's also possible. It would need to be trimmed down on its feature set, & my guess is that the emulator would definitely have to be a high-level emulator(meaning taking full advantage of the host system hardware specs, which would be the N3DS).

@Everyone_Else: The emulator would be the slowdown here. Windows 95 was made for low-end pcs.

Now if it were Win98, I'd understand...

How does Space Cadet Pinball run?

it seems that the New system's improved specifications have provided just to boost to get this running slowly.
Windows 95 can no be added to the list.

Proof read your articles next time?

I downloaded this and it does actually boot to the desktop - if you change the input settings you can use the D-Pad as the arrows on the emulated keyboard and Start as Enter. I manged to load up My Computer and Control Panel this way

Still takes forever and a day to boot though xD
I'm sure optimizations will help this, though.

Now what we need is Circle Pad for the mouse, L/R for left/right click and a touch keyboard.

Note that you need to get your own Windows 95 image sorted. For obvious reasons (copyright and the fact a W95 install is around 200MB!) it doesn't come with one.

Pretty awesome. Would like to see them get Android or another distro of Linux like debian on here.
Especially Android; I want to see how well it compares to my old Motorola Cliq, which has the same CPU architecture (only 1 core though) and same amount of RAM.

Windows 95 should run pretty good. I still have an old Pentium 233 laptop which runs Windows 95 like a champ. The problem is web surfing on it is slow as a snail because of how far along the Internet has come along. Videos and such running on practically every web page doesn't help. But a text only browser works great. So it should run pretty good on the 3DS.

If they are running Windows 95 from DoxBox it may not run so good on the 3DS

Haven't played Settlers, Syndicate or Championship Manager 93 in over 10 years and would love to again.
Can't see this helping though...

But where did they insert the 28 floppy disks?

I still have my old Compaq 486 (sealed away in the attic), which I upgraded to DX, and it took 28 floppies to upgrade from 3.1 to 95. On a 200MB HDD and I believe I upgraded the RAM from 4 to 8MB, but those #s don't make any sense to me know, but I remember paying $176 for the 4 MB of RAM.

So the 3DS is equivalent to the last 1994 desktop that didn't have a CD drive.

"Outside of a small circle of devotees this has little practical use, but is evidence of how keen some are to play around with the hardware and see what's possible. Windows 95 can no be added to the list."

You meant: "Windows 95 can now be added to the list" Right?

Sorry for been the nazi grammarian of NL.

I remember Windows 95 and playing DOS games on my dad's old computer, which was super high tech at the time ^^

@ThomasBW84 "Windows 95 can no be added to the list." not trying to be rude, just wanted to let you know about the typo. But I think this is a really cool novelty.

Play old/classics Need For Speed PC versions in the 3DS?, I can't wait!! XD
is worth dreaming, jijiji

@sillygostly Surprised I didn't know that, very interesting! I will have to look into it. Cheers

I want a GNU/Linux distribution, so I can play SuperTuxKart, FreeCiv and Wesnoth...

@Capt_N Not realy DOS games, more like games that were around that era, which came in CDs, like Speedy Eggbert 1 and 2.

@Pac-Fan Mama Brickolini's! Where else are you gonna eat?

Spider-Man Cartoon Maker and Mario Paint crossover! Make it happen!

Maybe we can get a GBA emulator on the Win 95 emulator. Hey, it's more likely to happen than Nintendo putting GBA games on the 3DS.

@maceng I couldn't get past that typo.

@ZenTurtle If the New 3DS can run a proprietary OS of any kind, even an old one like Windows 95, I think it's only a matter of time until a slackware Linux OS is feasible, if it hasn't been done already!

This is actually quite an impressive achievement. Windows 95 may be an old OS, but it's a proprietary OS, which should make it exceptionally difficult to get running on non-x86 hardware. If the New 3DS can handle this, it can surely handle a specialized slackware Linux OS that is more malleable and actually usable. Who knows... Maybe at some point after NX is released, there will be a 3DS Linux distro...

@PlywoodStick
There will be no video acceleration though, to the detriment of most modern video games. This is because the 3DS is proprietary hardware, such is the agressive nature of Nintendo's guarding of its secrets. It is a pity because the 3DS would be interesting to run various libre video games, and would benefit from a proper music player in VLC. It would of course just be fun to see what people might do, given freedom.

@Patriplexity Ooh, cool! (You might want to redact that link, because NL will probably censor it)

If it doesn't run Monster Truck Madness I want nothing further to do with it

This Windows Ninety-Fiiiiiive
Is sucking up my driiiiiive
'Cause my PC
Is obsolete
I need to buy myself a brand new machine

The 3DS is likely capable of all sorts of thing Nintendo hasn't allowed it to do. If my smartphone from 5 years ago could run N64 and SNES titles, pretty sure there's enough under the hood to put these sorts of things on the Virtual Console Nintendo likes to pretend doesn't exist.

@Pac-Fan
Windows 10 has better backwards compatibility than Windows 7.
And then it installs the wrong drivers and bricks your computer.
Windows 10 is garbage.

@burninmylight it's better to do it straight up without going through another emulator.
mGBA works on all hacks and runs all games at playable speeds(most at full speed with audio glitches)
for kernel hacks there are better options like dynarec-capable emulators or GBA VC injection(replace the rom in a VC game with a gba rom, making it run in the native compatibility mode)

@Patriplexity I had linux on my DSlite a few years ago.
the gui was barely usable though, and it needed an extra RAM cartridge(like the opera browser slot2 card)

I'm not seeing Windows 95 run in that video. Just a static title screen and some guy breathing into the mic. :/

Does it have Hover

@rjejr I had Windows 95 on CD ROM. Running on a Pentium 120mhz, 8MB ram, 1mb vram and 1GB HDD. The pc died around 2000, managed to repair it around 2007 for fun, then threw it out. Wish I kept it!

@liveswired I wish I threw more stuff out, I have my old Compaq sealed up tight in storage b/c it was my first, well actually my 2nd but that's a whole other story, PC, the others are all just junk, I really need to dump them. I even have my parents Dell from 2000, and that was a piece of junk the day my parents bought it. I finally did get rid of my last 15" CRT monitor about a month ago, the office seems so much bigger now.