Just recently someone did something insane by installing the old Windows 95 OS on an Android wear device; yes, am talking about the twenty years old classic Windows OS running on a wearable.
The OS which was sideloaded using ADOSBOX, as expected didn’t run quite smoothly, just after an application was opened it ran out of memory space. You can watch a practical video of the watch running the old OS below.
Though, it’s not like anything much can be done on such a tiny screen running an OS meant for a desktop, but this just goes to show how technology has advanced in the past couple of years in terms of hardware and software capabilities.
Am guessing if this was possible on a smartwatch, it’s also possible on a smartphone. Not like there will any need for it though, because it’s still going to be practically useless.
Regular smartphones have pushed past such barriers already. I thought years ago that my Nokia N97 mini would run Windows xp going merely by the processor clock speed, RAM and internal memory (through an emulator of course). Mid-range to low-end android phones already run Playstation One and Nintendo 64 emulators without breaking a sweat (and performance drop should drop on an emulator, though it depends on the host hardware). I remember such emulators dragging on P3 PCs (additional RAM was a luxury sha) many years back, (maybe the code has been optimized) buts its all a testament of how far tech has come. Moore’s law and all that…