Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

This is so cool & I'm really amazed by it but I couldn't help laugh at the readme

> We strongly recommend contributing with Claude Code or similar AI coding tools. [...] Of course, coding by hand is also welcome.

Funny time we live in lol

Hidden feature: right-click any executable and select "View Resources" to browse its embedded resources like icons, bitmaps, dialogs, and version info. It even supports viewing Delphi forms (though Delphi programs can't actually run yet). Think of it as a browser-based Resource Hacker or eXeScope.

Just a couple of hours ago I was thinking about this project from some time ago doing the same thing: https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32

I wondered how much of this could be done with an LLM agent, and here we have the answer

Seems to run a lot faster than the previous proof-of-concept I've found (https://www.boxedwine.org/app). Then again, that website runs an entire Linux VM to support Wine.

I tried 22 old game EXEs I have and none of them worked. They would import and show the icon and some would open, but nothing would work and most wouldn't even close. They would either show various error messages when trying to open or just open in a broken/unusable state.

I love how quick it is and that it can run screen savers. My site has a similar concept with drag and drop but is using BoxedWine behind the scenes so it's a bit slower to boot up. Also very cool the "View Resources" part.

I wonder if this is the future of "I need to run my legacy Windows enterprise app on modern hardware"?

I suppose we're also not limited to WinNT look and feel, and can render dialogs, buttons, windows with any CSS framework?

Although, as the cost of building software is tumbling down, it will make more sense to re-build from scratch, targeting whatever runtime or platform you need.

Cool concept. I tried six different old Windows executables from programs I wrote way back when.

FWIW:

* My old VB 6 .exe apps all fail with "Reason: Unimplemented API: MSVBVM60.DLL..."

* My old QuickBASIC .exe apps fail in various other ways ("Illegal function call", etc.).

Keep on hacking.

This is seriously impressive. Emulating x86 + stubbing enough Win32 APIs in the browser is not trivial.

How are you handling system calls that expect filesystem or registry access? Are those fully stubbed/mocked, or mapped to some in-browser virtual layer?

Also curious how you’re handling performance for heavier binaries — interpreted JS/WASM core?

This is super cool!

Checkout retrowin32 for something similar but written in Rust and not specifically targeting the web: https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32

I had a not-really-similar idea of hooking Windows GUI APIs and exposing them over websockets to create a psuedo-RDP and rendering the UI in the browser. My purpose was to provide a remote interface for old dedicated game servers that can only be controlled via a GUI.

I can right click and inspect HTML. I was thinking it will all be rendered on a single canvas. It's not. All the window elements like buttons, title bars etc are html divs. This is awesome.

Tried it with REVERSI.EXE from Windows 3.0 from https://winworldpc.com/download/c2bbc28f-177a-c2b2-5311-c3a4... DISK02.IMG

(you have to first uncompress it, for example with 7zip).

    $ sha256sum REVERSI.EXE
    a9e319c8f479d1568beec03858fdbb27c71747b2bbed6cd7c9f5e2daa23b40e9  REVERSI.EXE

Result:

The game starts, it begins rendering the board, but then hangs.

Nice. QBASIC FOR i = 1 to 5: PRINT i: NEXT hung up after 4. The shift key didn't work in the Qbasic Editor.

Please let me plan Sim Theme Park. I can't seem to run it on Crossover on my mac.

Funny project...

Tried to run SHELL from QBASIC, but it crashes:

  D:\qbasic.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close.
  
  Reason:  illegal instruction
  Address: 0x00002fee

Pretty cool. The pipes program doesn't seem to have color. Thoughts on making programs launch from a URL parameter? IE Launching a screensaver or game?

Not sure shift is working. I tried using QBASIC but couldn't type : only ; because of that.

Then I tried running the program SHELL and it crashed.

Aww. The FreeCell cheats don't work, except for -1 and -2 :)

Seems like the .scr files trigger CrowdStrike Falcon. Not clear where the executables run here come from...

Can it run doom?

Impressive. Noting however that double-clicking is not working in Minesweeper. :)

Not enough Shell32 to run Winfile or Notepad.

Also the command prompt won't list directories for some reason.

Winamp 2.x would be great to add if allowed!

they even have SSMAZE.SCR, that 2.5D rendering screensaver! :D

Whoa, this is pretty sick!!

Nice

[dead]