14 DAY TRIAL // Running a Java-emulated version of an operating system in a browser is not a new thing, but archive.org has published something that might make many of us feel a little bit nostalgic.
A huge collection of Windows 3.1 applications along with the operating system itself can now be loaded right in a browser, giving you the option to see what working (or playing) on a computer more than 25 years ago was like.
The list of apps includes no less than 1,500 items and as you can see for yourself here, it includes the most popular programs back then, including the original calendar and games such as Roulette and Golf Solitaire.
Microsoft supported the project
As Ars writes, this project was put together by Internet Archive software collector and historian Jason Scott with help from Microsoft, who agreed to allow old apps to be published on the website. And yet, should any legal issue be reported, the targeted apps are removed immediately, although nobody expects this to happen since they’re pretty much older programs that nobody sells these days.
“You can still see all the themes with graphical interfaces in this era. Anyone could do it. All these weird little people who wanna make, like, an eclipse predictor. That stuff is all in phones now. These days, you'd make a website or an app—never an EXE that downloads and runs and does one little thing. This collection is starting to get towards the end of the era where that happened,” Jason Scott was quoted as saying.
Certainly, this collection of apps can serve several purposes, especially in the educational field where younger people are already used to more advanced software that runs on a wide array of devices. It was undoubtedly hard to imagine that technology would evolve so much back then in the early ‘90s.