EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYyr9eUkA4

Ok, now you've seen what you're aiming to achieve, let's get on with it.

I've tried to make this guide as simple and short as possible so that everyone with an n900 can easily get Windows 95 running.

First things first, you're gonna need a few programs installed on your device to do this. Don't worry, they can be found in the maemo repositories.

emelFM2: This is an invaluable file manager. It allows you to do anything you want with any file on your device, including system files so be careful when you use it.

Dosbox: This is an x86 emulator with dos. It's what you're going to be using to boot Windows 95 with.

Installed those? Great. Next thing you're going to need is a bootable .img file of Windows 95. Now, i can't give you the one i have as that would class as piracy so you have two options; make one or find one on the internet. If you have the knowledge/skills to make one with your existing Windows 95 CD, do it. Failing that, search google for 'w95.img'. I'm quite sure you'll find what you need, if not you can always pm your email address for, 'extra advice'.

The same .img files used for loading Windows 95 on a symbian device or Sony PSP will work.

Ok, now you've got your .img, for the sake of making this guide easier to follow., rename the file w95.img. Good. Put the file in home/user/MyDocs (n900/ in the file manager)

Time to get started then ;)

Make sure you type all codes exactly as they are written here, linux is case sensitive.

1) open up x-terminal and type the following:
2) open up emelFM2, click the white box on the left hand screen and type:
A file called dosbox-0.73.conf should appear in the box below, highlight that file by clicking on it once then click the green downwards arrow in the center of the screen and press edit.

Scroll down to the bottom of this file to where it says 'Lines in this section willbe run at startup' and type the following underneath:
Click save and close emelFM2. Open Dosbox and sit back and watch while Windows 95 loads on your n900 :D
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want to have a go at making programs run a bit better in dosbox, open up and edit the .dosbox config file again with emelFM2 and:

Disable all the sound emulation. (I'm sure you can do that without my help)

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=640x480

core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=2800
cycleup=100
cycledown=100

These are the settings i use but they're not 100%; I can't seem to get the mouse to sync.

Try tweeking the cycle value (i'd stick to say, 1000-15000) to see how well you can run it. Note; setting it too high will result in massive slow downs!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have tested Windows 98 (lite professional) and it runs using the method shown here. It's not as quick as 95 but it's not too bad. If anyone wants to try run it themselves simply replace the w95.img with a Windows 98 image.

Peace.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

When you say a bootable img file of Win95 do you mean an install disc or a working installed 'live cd' version of win95 ?

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

The latter. It'd be the same img as the ones used for running 95 on a symbian device.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Have you tried Windows XP?

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

No point trying. It couldn't work with dosbox, sorry.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Arctine,

Do you have links/pointers to make the win95.img - I have an official Win95 CD.

Cheers,

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Windows ME?

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

This sounds so weird I just got to try it :D
Probably more of a fun app, then useful haha!

/cheers

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

If you're able to run Office it might be useful... how slow is it? can you make a (steady :P) video with some apps running to see if it's usable? :-)

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Not using this method, no. I've heard someone has got Windows NT running but i dunno much about it personally.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

I haven't got the means of uploading another video but i'll tell you, it's quite usable and not too slow if you configure your dosbox .config (search this site if you need more info on that). I'm not sure about installing any programs, i haven't tried.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

What about the w98 image have you tried that ?

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Check your PMs.


As for Windows 98, i'm trying to get that working now, yeah.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

I am not finding emelFM2 in the app manager. I have testing and devel enabled.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

What setting did you change in the dosbox.conf to make yours so fast. W95 is incredible slow on my n900 and how did you make it fit on your screen?

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

http://www.debernardis.it/downloads/...optified01.deb

Download that through the browser on your device and save it in the 'n900' folder.

open x terminal and type:

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Thank you Arctine!

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Disable all the sound emulation. (I'm sure you can do that without my help)

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=640x480

core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=2800
cycleup=100
cycledown=100

These are the settings i use but they're not 100%; I can't seem to get the mouse to sync

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

ok now i havent tried win95 in dosbox (my install files are bad) but i did have win3.1 running, although very slow. something you may want to try is setup easy debian lxde and run win95 in dos box within that. i know it sounds a little crazy but it will execute faster. i had win3.1 running a good 4 times faster when executing this way as apose to running in dosbox within maemo. not sure why it works better but it just does. perhaps lxde is better optimized than maemo but even so considering maemo is still running while lxde is eating up some cpu time dosbox still works ALOT better.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

oh and the mouse will sync better. its not spot on but is better especially if the first place you touch the screen is where the cursor is.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Errors, I edited the config of dosbox

http://www.xs4all.nl/~carsten/Errors/screenshot21.png
http://www.xs4all.nl/~carsten/Errors/screenshot22.png

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

You need a capital d in /MyDocs/

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Must be,

mount c /home/user/MyDocs/dos
c:
imgmount e c:\95\w95.img -t hdd -fs fat
boot -l c

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Ah, ok, so you still have the "crazy mouse" problem. That's always been the blocker before. Without a fix for "crazy mouse" this is just a curiosity.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Exactly.

Corrected the typo :)

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Yeah, I can't find away around it. It's fine if you use vnc to control it. It's not only Windows though, it's any program i run in Dosbox =\

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

This is cool!, thanks for helping me too play with win95 on N900!

Somebody get that mouse fixed lol

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

tried this but got::
status database locked by another process?
lucky me!
im not letting it beat me tho!
ill fight it to the death! (reboot and try again lol)

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Either that or just quit the application manager before using dpkg. :)

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Does anyone know how I can access the files in home/user/MyDocs from Windows? I tried mounting the folder I need in Dosbox as drive d... But it doesnt seem to appear in windows 95.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

i just cant install emelfm2, now i get: cannot access archive: no such file or directory, errors were encountered while processing
i used the link provided, spelling is correct, file is in documents (the folder n900 downloaded it to), i cant put the file into MyDocs cos it does not exist if i look for it using n900 file manager,
so i connect to WinSCP and i can see MyDocs but i cant find 'documents'
its painfull being a n00b again!

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

The root folder of your flash drive is located at /home/user/MyDocs/ via x-terminal but in the maemo file manager, it's the folder called 'n900' where you find the, audio clips, camera, documents, images, video clips etc folders. Place your .deb file in this 'n900' folder and run the dpkg code again :)

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

looks like i didnt read the first post properly:eek:

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

I've got Windows 98 running, (lite professional) but it's a lot slower than 95. Gonna have a play around.

For those who want to try themselves, simply replace the w95.img with a 98 image.

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

nope, i dont see anything in the box below, and im still in home/user?
and there is no file in home/user called .dosbox?
think ive been trying to do this for about 6 hours now:confused:

EDIT: the dos box app needs to be started and closed for the .dosbox folder to be seen, for me anyway

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

sudo gainroot

ls .dosbox

there is configfile

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

so on to the next problem:
in dos box ive got:
dir home/user/MyDocs/dos doesnt exist
then loads of other crap then at the bottom it says
cannot open -1

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

Do you have msn?

Edit: just looks like you haven't got the / before home.

And isn't a one, it's an L

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

is that a '1' or a 'i' or a 'I' at the end?
either way ive tried them all and its still not working,

Re: EASY GUIDE: Booting Windows 95 on the n900 :)
 

i never tried 'L'
i was thinking the problem could be there tho!