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Who Needs Android on a Smartwatch When You Can Run Windows 95? (video)

When Byte published the image at right on their cover in 1981, I’m not sure they ever really expected it to become a reality.

But thanks to one Samsung Gear Live owner the idea of putting a real computer into a space the size of a wristwatch is no longer a joke (though it is a little funny how close a microSD card is in size to that floppy disk).

A hacker by the name of Corbin Davenport has decided that his Android Wear-powered smartwatch didn’t have enough features (clearly he has the soul of an engineer), so he’s been doing all sorts of horrible things to it.

In addition to getting it to run the Android version of Doom, he’s also Windows 95 running. While there’s no version of Win95 which can run directly on Android, Davenport was able to run it inside of the DOS emulator aDosBox (Google Play).

it doesn’t run very well and it’s not terribly usable on a 1.65″ screen, but it does run. Unfortunately, it also tends to crash. Davenport notes in the video that he thinks it runs out of RAM, and that the lack of a config file for aDosBox is keeping him from changing the settings.

But even though this project is less than successful, it is still closer in spirit to the idea expressed in the cover image than a lot of smartwatches. Most are still conceived of as an accessory, while Davenport has turned his into a PC on a wrist.

Liliputing

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