Nina Kalinina @nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
Public

I discovered a wonderful hack that likely would allow me to run Windows 2 on my vintage Apricot PC Xi before the New Year.

Quick recap: Apricot PC is a British computer from 1983, not compatible with the IBM PC. It had a Windows 1 port, but not Windows 2, and thus couldn't run Word, Excel, or Illustrator. With a bit of driver-writing, I managed to start Windows 2 on it, but my video driver is rudimentary and cannot be used for practical purposes. Windows video drivers are super-complicated, so I was fully expecting to spend over a month writing one (at least there are docs for everything!)

But I just discovered a way to run Windows 2 with Windows 1 video drivers. So if I had a Windows 1 driver for Apricot, I could use it in Windows 2. Of course, it's never that simple...

Find the difference between Windows 2 with Win1 driver and Windows 2 with the real Win2 driver - both are EGA 640x350!

🧵 thread with a few more screenshots and pointers

Windows 2 running in Dosbox - showing MS-DOS Executive file manager and Solitaire. Except it uses Windows 1 video driverWindows 2 running in Dosbox in EGA monochrome mode - the fonts look decisively different from a previous screenshot. This is a real Windows 2 with Windows 2 video driver
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