In what can only be called “totally frakking awesome”, someone installed Microsoft Windows 3.1 on a Nokia N95. By using DOSBox, Polish developer Marcin-PRV was able to install the ageing operating system on the Symbian-powered smartphone, allowing both operating systems to run side-by-side.
Sure, it might not be particularly useful or usable, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t totally cool. The screen is rather small, and I guess the mouse is being controlled by the five way pointer of the phone, but the phone itself is powerful enough to run Windows 3.1 easily, and I’m sure Windows 95 wouldn’t be too much trouble either. DOSBox was used to emulate a 486-class processor.
The use of this? Well, fun, mostly, and a sense of “why not?”. I’d love to be able to run Windows 3.1 on my Nokia E71; not because it would make any sense, but just because it’s cool. With phones getting ever more powerful, there’s enough spare cycles in there to dedicate to silly things like this.
If anyone can read Polish feel free to fill us in on the details.
You find that .. cool? Beer & sex are cool. This is useless and will just cause the chicks to roll their eyes at you.
I don’t think the point the writer was trying to make with this post was ‘look you cool this is to grab chicks with!’
I mean it’s hardly like your going to see a girl at a bar, walk over and say, ‘Hey honey, I’ve got windows 3.1 working on my phone. Sexy or what?’. This isn’t for flashing around (other than to equally geeky friends), it’s just a little something to make *ones self* smile.
I’m sure everyone can infer(spelling terrible today, sorry) the rest of my point.
Sam of
inthebinaryrefinery.co.uk
I mean it’s hardly like your going to see a girl at a bar, walk over and say, ‘Hey honey, I’ve got windows 3.1 working on my phone. Sexy or what?’
Actually… I’d be interested in a heartbeat to see that in action
Would be damn cool pick-up line 
Not that I get picked up at bars, though, I ain’t from the prettiest mold.. 
Mind the audience here, Nita. You’re a geek girl – you’re rarer than a crash on a VMS system. And you’re Finish. Then again, I’m not so sure you’d have any use for any of the guys in here
.
Before anyone spazzes out: I’m JOKING.
If nothing else, it would be an interesting variation on the old “Want to see my etchings?” cliche.
I also don’t see why this is cool..
it’s geeky cool. How would the readers at OS news, a site for operating system enthusiasts, not think this is kinda cool.
and beer and sex are not cool, beer and sex are awsome!
HAHAHAH
Of course it’s totally cool. Rock stars are cool, right? Rumour has it that Kurt Cobain killed himself because he couldn’t take win3.1 with him.
Oh lovely, a dressing down on ‘coolness’ and chicks by a fellow internet geek. Certainly grounds for declaring ones-self an expert on the topic.
I see it as mildly interesting, but not worthy of a front page news story.
I see it more as evidence that it must be a slow news day.
No, this is beyond cool. This is awesome. You have to look at it in perspective. 15-20 years ago we barely had enough power to run Windows 3.1 on our desktops and now we can run it in an emulated environment on a portable device.
It really makes you think how far technology has progressed.
> 15-20 years ago we barely had enough power to
> run Windows 3.1 on our desktops and now we can run
> it in an emulated environment on a portable device.
…15 years ago I was running OS/2 on my desktop and multitasking several applications at the same time. So no, we didn’t “barely” have enough power to run Windows 3.1 on our desktops back then.
Well, just because OS/2 could run well on a 286*X doesn’t mean Windows 3.1 could do so. OS/2 could probably run on half the hardware and do twice as much 🙂
I kinda miss OS/2.. but I found BeOS and haven’t looked back except in nostalgia! Then again, I still get those old nostalgic feelings when running Windows 7.. oh wait… maybe that is nausea?
–The loon
15 years ago I installed OS/2 on my desktop and it was too slow to use, so had to revert back to Windows 3.1
This is great and all for the show-off value, but I’m more interested in the fact that you can get DOSBox on the N95. That opens up a whole world of retro gaming possibilities (better than all the demo shite on N-Gage for my money) if it works well.
Anyone know where to find this? There’s no mention of it on the DOSBox site.
Download DOSBox for S60 here.
http://www.ipmart-forum.com/showthread.php?t=334841
Thanks! =)
The DOSbox forum thread can be found here: http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=20708
JAL
I’d file this under the category “stuff that’s fun to do, but once you actually have it running it’s kind of useless.”
Don’t tell me I’m the only one with that category on my list of accomplishments!
Why are the frames/phone borders in each photo different? Some are “gold” in color and some are “silver”.
Why the photos that are showing off the actual Windows 3.1 itself are zoomed in so much to the extent that we are unable to see the phone itself?
Why isn’t there a video footage of this? I am not saying this is fake but if you look closely and consider what is being presented, on the photos that are showing off the actual Windows 3.1, the phone itself cannot be seen.
We are only looking at the screen itself? The photos that are showing off Windows 3.1 are all the gold ones, the ones where the phone itself is not visible and only the screen is.
Edited 2009-02-24 01:25 UTC
I can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t be possible from a technical POV.
I’m gonna have a go at installing Win 98SE under DOSBox on my N95-8GB. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow as it’s ten to two in the morning here.
If anyone can read Polish feel free to fill us in on the details.
They got Windows 3.1 running on DOSBox. Next.
Some time ago somebody already booted windows 95 through dosbox on a gp2x, I don’t think this is more special than that. Besides that there is of course no practical use to it.
Edited 2009-02-24 11:44 UTC
I find it kinda funny that people here marvel on wondruous projects aiming to run stripped down unusable version of Linux on several machines are fantastic and a great advance and everything, but someone running windows on those same machines is just meh.
Bias ftw.
I think this is cool, porting OSes to strange platforms always is, even if there are clearly little point in doing so
Most times these Linuxes turn out to be quite usable. There are many very interesting projects out there bringing new features to small/obscure devices based on Linux. “I see a command line” is only the initial step.
Whereas it is quite hard to find any use in Windows 3.1. today; and it is not even a pleasure to look at it.
Still I wouldn’t say anything negative about this “achievement”.
I am sure this is illegal.
I hope it is. I just want to see Microsoft go after someone for putting Windows 3.1 on his or her phone. Ha! That would be comedic.
Freaking cool 😉 This is basically why we want to have smartphones instead of dumbphones: to able to do whichever crazy thing we can think of 😉
Nokia and its Symbian suck, just as crappy as Windows.
Want a sophisticated os on a phone? buy an iPhone.
You could achieve the same geeky feat on the 18Mhz Psion 5 running EPOC, Symbian’s precursor. That wasn’t any more useful, but Windows emulated in your palm was a lot more impressive ten years ago.
I’d be happy with Zork, but it would be a bitch to play without an E71
m.