Developer Nick Lee has managed to hack a working version of Windows 95 onto his Apple Watch. The utility of this is close to zero — but it is hilarious to watch. It highlights how smart wristwatches like Apple Watch are now as powerful as (if not more than) desktop computers from the turn of the century. Watch the full video of the ‘microsoftOS’ Apple Watch in action after the jump …
Obviously, it isn’t normally possible to run arbitrary code on an Apple Watch; the developer explains the necessary steps and workarounds he had to use in the blog post.
The process is based off a method well-known Apple developer Steven Troughton Smith found to run native UIKit apps on Apple Watch, escaping the numerous limitations of Apple’s public sanctioned WatchKit framework.
As the OS is running in emulation, it is a lot slower than if the Watch ran the Windows kernel natively. Lee says it takes about an hour for the device to boot into a usable state. When Windows 95 was new, nobody was thinking of tablets or touchscreen iPhones apart from in sci-fi movies. Now, the same power is available on your wrist.
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a true miracle was windows 95 running on pentium 166mhz with 16 mb ram
apple watch, like iphone 4, has 800 mhz cpu and 512mb ram
from “highlights how … Apple Watch are now as powerful as (if not more than) desktop computers from the turn of the century”
Not true. Back in the day I ran Windows 95 on a machine with 100 Mhz and 8 MB RAM. Though it ran kinda poorly, it was far from a “true miracle” and it did get the job done. Windows 95 was the default OS for 16 MB RAM. You could even run Windows 98 on 16 MB RAM (though it would’ve helped if you had at least 32 MB RAM for that).
What is that red wire thing that keeps moving?
Why can’t I edit comments? Is it a air thing to keep the watch from overheating?
It looks to me as if it is triggering frame captures. Much of the video is time lapse: when they say it doesn’t run as fast as native mode, they aren’t kidding! It looks like a shell script is interpreting each individual i86 instruction: hours to boot, many minutes to respond to a virtual mouse movement or click.
It’s a little motor rotating the Digital Crown. But why should the Digital Crown be rotated..
Since it appears to be mounted over the AppleWatch Crown, it may be turned to keep the screen active for the stop action video?
Yep that’s it. I read another article about it, that’s how they kept the screen from turning off.
It presses the digital crown to prevent the Apple Watch from falling asleep
Why?
Why Not?
Excess Time On Their Hands?
First (and, last) To Say He Did It?
Owns MS Stock and Looking For A Breakthrough To Cause The MS Stock To Rise – And SELL, SELL, SELL?
Thinks Bill Gates Was A Genius – And Tryng To Show He Was As Smart As Steve?
Just Enjoys A Challenge?
YMMV ;)
end times
“When Windows 95 was new, nobody was thinking of tablets or touchscreen iPhones apart from in sci-fi movies. ”
I’m guessing the author is … young. I used an Apple Newton as my calendar and contact list a full year before Windows 95 was available.
“Lee says it takes about an hour for the device to boot into a usable state.”
That seems pretty normal for W95, though it wasn’t very usable after it finished booting up.
Were you molested by windows 95 in your childhood?
While it runs Windows 95, it’s still highly unusable for a day to day OS install. Why can’t people just use the product the way it came from the factory? I think the guy has way too much time on his hands.
because he can? if i own something I can do whatever the hell I want to it
Finally, Apple Watch can do something useful!
Now if they could only figure out how to get Apple Watch to run Windows Vista.
Vista? That dosn’t make sense.
And suddenly it was better!
Must have been a slow weekend… wonder how long until it got a GPF blue screen crash? :)
Oh please. That’s easy. I want to see OS X running on a Moto 360 ;)
*joke*
Waste of time. Then it got a virus and crashed like all windows machines.
If you are so bored about your watch, give me your apple watch please. :)