Comment by theodric
1 year ago
Back in the late 90s there was some tool that ran an actual Windows 3.1 which displayed in a browser window. I had a demo, and I remember it clearly, but for the life of me I can't tell you what it was or how it worked. I think it was a Win32 program.
Windows 9x had a win 16 subsystem. You could ostensibly access it through ActiveX which was in IE at the time. Certainly more of a hack than an emulator.
It also could have been an Adobe flash imitation which is probably more likely.
Must be the former, because I loaded a Windows 3.1 app into it and ran it!
Had to have been that given the age. The only other alternative is a binary plug-in.
JavaScript/VBScript didn't have enough control to pull it off and Java was way too slow back then. It used to be a real dog - probably still carries some of that baggage albeit undeservedly (Android for instance, runs things just fine)