Developer installs Windows 95 on Apple Watch

A developer has managed to equip his Apple Watch with Windows 95. Although it takes about an hour to boot the now more than twenty year old operating system, the software seems to run remarkably well.

To prove the installation, the creator Nick Lee has put a video online. This shows that the operating system actually functions, although it takes a few minutes before Lee manages to start a program. Menus can be opened by touch screen gestures.

In a blog post, Lee explains that he had to use several tricks to get Windows 95 working. For example, the software had to be packaged as a kind of Watch application before the smart watch would accept it. It turns out that some files can run their own application code, instead of Apple’s own. For example, I managed to get an x86 emulator running that runs Windows 95 virtually. The rest of the steps are outlined by Lee on his blog post.

Running Windows 95 on the Apple Watch isn’t much use. However, the hobby project is a demonstration of the fact that the smart watch can run a desktop operating system. The Apple Watch has a 520MHz processor built-in, which works with 512MB of RAM.