Retrocomputing
Following the article “Offline,” here are some resources to help you relive the days of computing from the past decades. Or if you’ve never experienced it, now you can! For most of the links below, all you’ll need is a modern Web browser—like Firefox or Safari… not Netscape 3 or IE6. ;)
Retro OSes
- Windows 95 in your browser
- All the glory of Windows 95 in your browser. The creator of this virtual machine running in DOSBox ported to JavaScript has now transfer the files to the Internet Archive.
- Windows 95 in Electron
- A downloadable app which runs Windows 95 ported to JavaScript in a local browser.
- PCjs Machines
- A collection of all sorts of classes OSes on many kinds of emulated hardware, including Windows 3.1, OS/2, MS-DOS, and CP/M.
- Infinite Mac
- A collection of classic Apple operating systems before Mac OS X.
- Virtual x86
- Another assorted collection of OSes ported to JavaScript, some popular, some esoteric.
Parodies
- Windows 93
- A Windows-like experience for the browser, with an extensive collection of retro-style apps. Includes a variety of Flash apps ported to JavaScript with Ruffle.
- Windows 96
- Another experience similar to classic Windows 9x, but more faithful to the original.
- 98.js
- An implementation of components from os-gui.js to mimic Windows 98.
- Windows RG
- Clearly a parody of Windows Me, which was regarded as a joke by many in the time. Entertaining Flash app on Newgrounds, ported to JavaScript. (Fun fact: I won a copy of Windows Me once, but I just ended up tossing the CD in the microwave.)
- Poolsuite
- Formerly known as Poolside, ’80s tracks and videos in a classic Mac OS experience. Native apps also available for macOS and iOS. They also sell their own brand of sunscreen.
Browsing Yesterday’s Web
- Internet Archive Wayback Machine
- A wide collection of Web sites archived from 1996, still updated today.
- Retrosurfing
- More tidbits about computing in the “good ol’ days” with resources on browsing old sites.
- timeprox
- Written by the author of Retrosurfing, a local proxy written in Node which can be used in classic browsers to access sites stored in the Internet Archive as if you were browsing the Web today.
- Protoweb
- Another proxy allowing classic browsers to access archived sites, like timeprox, but runs remotely. Ideal when trying classic OSes in browsers, which wouldn’t allow you to use a local proxy.
Not quite retro…
…but still interesting to see these were made.
- Windows 10 simulation in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- If you updated to 11 and already miss 10, I guess you can try this out to bring you a sense of nostalgia.
- Win11 in React
- An impressive proof of concept of the Windows 11 experience recreated with React.
- OS.js
- A generic OS made to run in a browser written in JavaScript. Includes live demo.