In other words, this is janky and imperfect and totally a hack.
January 24, 2015 4:22 AM Subscribe
That’s Netscape 1.0n, released in December of 1994, running inside Windows 3.11, released in August of 1993, running inside of Google Chrome 39.0.2171.99 m, released about a week ago, on a Windows 7 PC, released in 2009.Welcome to the Emularity: as tools and processes improves it's becoming easier and easier to emulate historical computer (programme)s within your browser. By Jason Scott.
The update at the end of the article says this is a bit unstable, and too many users would give it a hug of death.
posted by leviathan3k at 4:59 AM on January 24, 2015
posted by leviathan3k at 4:59 AM on January 24, 2015
Hey hey, my my! Windows 3 will never die....
Where will this end? Will someone go to the Wayback Machine and recreate the 1995 Internet, running on emulated servers to a network of emulated Windows 3.11 machines via Winsock with Gopher and Veronica and all that?
posted by Devonian at 5:32 AM on January 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
Where will this end? Will someone go to the Wayback Machine and recreate the 1995 Internet, running on emulated servers to a network of emulated Windows 3.11 machines via Winsock with Gopher and Veronica and all that?
posted by Devonian at 5:32 AM on January 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
Devonian "I" want this so bad I can taste it.
posted by mrgroweler at 5:41 AM on January 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by mrgroweler at 5:41 AM on January 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
What was once satire is now conventional.
posted by ardgedee at 5:42 AM on January 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 5:42 AM on January 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
I was wondering the other day if there's an emulator that allows you to run Mac system 7 emulated in a browser. I thought for a second and then decided that would be crazy. Guess not.
posted by photoslob at 5:42 AM on January 24, 2015
posted by photoslob at 5:42 AM on January 24, 2015
It's linked in one of the comments in jscott's blog post, but worth bringing up here as well: You need an intermediary chunk of software between your antique browser and the modern web. This is because those browsers became obsolete while HTTP, the communication protocol for the World Wide Web, was still at version 1.0. The current HTTP standard, version 1.1, ratified in 1999. (The link is worth reading, apropos the web of the olden days, even if you aren't interested in getting an intermediary chunk of software.)
posted by ardgedee at 5:54 AM on January 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 5:54 AM on January 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Emulation is one of those things that I only barely understand at all but which sets off my "this is soooo coooool!" response quite reliably.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:59 AM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:59 AM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Atwood's Law: any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.
posted by furtive at 6:23 AM on January 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by furtive at 6:23 AM on January 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
running on emulated servers to a network of emulated Windows 3.11 machines via Winsock with Gopher and Veronica and all that?
Winsock? What are you made of money? Do you know how much those emulated SLIP and PPP dialup accounts cost?
I'm afraid you'll have to make do with emulated SlipKnot.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:23 AM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Winsock? What are you made of money? Do you know how much those emulated SLIP and PPP dialup accounts cost?
I'm afraid you'll have to make do with emulated SlipKnot.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:23 AM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
photoslob: "I was wondering the other day if there's an emulator that allows you to run Mac system 7 emulated in a browser. "
Wonder no more.
posted by adamrice at 6:47 AM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Wonder no more.
posted by adamrice at 6:47 AM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I still can run System 6 on my perfectly functional 1991 Macbook Duo 230, emulating a 20-something me.
posted by spitbull at 6:54 AM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by spitbull at 6:54 AM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
> That took him about 3 days.
Which is, coincidentally enough, about how long it took a website to load in 1993.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:59 AM on January 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
Which is, coincidentally enough, about how long it took a website to load in 1993.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:59 AM on January 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
an emulator that allows you to run Mac system 7 emulated in a browser.
now I want to play Spectre
posted by thelonius at 7:04 AM on January 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
now I want to play Spectre
posted by thelonius at 7:04 AM on January 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
We'll have to emulate the telephone system. Obvs.
(My god, what if we're all running an emulation of the 2015 Internet right now?)
posted by Devonian at 7:27 AM on January 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
(My god, what if we're all running an emulation of the 2015 Internet right now?)
posted by Devonian at 7:27 AM on January 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
From ardgedee's link:
posted by localroger at 7:38 AM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
This works because modern web browsers send a "Host" header saying which site they're actually looking for. Old web browsers didn't do that: if you wanted to host a dozen sites on a single server, that server had to have a dozen IP addresses, one for each site. So these sites have dedicated addresses!Because, you know, 4 billion websites should be enough for anybody.
posted by localroger at 7:38 AM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Nested emulation hacks are nothing new, what makes this one so wonderful is that it's all browser Javascript. A platform definitely not intended originally for general purpose computing. JSMESS works through the miracle of Emscripten, which can compile any LLVM front-end language to Javascript. And the shit actually works. The Javascript it generates is freaky weird kludges doing things like creating TypedArrays to emulate blocks of memory on the heap. But it runs, and runs pretty well. You can throw arbitrary 5 year old C++ code at it and there's a good chance it will mostly just work in a browser.
Yeah the Host header is a real problem. I tested this super-closely at Google back in, oh, 2002 and already by then all observed browsers were sending Host: headers. HTTP/1.0 doesn't mention Host headers, although a lot of HTTP/1.0 clients sent them. In general HTTP/1.0 still works fine on the Internet, I use it all the time as a way to avoid keepalives and chunked encoding.
posted by Nelson at 8:11 AM on January 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yeah the Host header is a real problem. I tested this super-closely at Google back in, oh, 2002 and already by then all observed browsers were sending Host: headers. HTTP/1.0 doesn't mention Host headers, although a lot of HTTP/1.0 clients sent them. In general HTTP/1.0 still works fine on the Internet, I use it all the time as a way to avoid keepalives and chunked encoding.
posted by Nelson at 8:11 AM on January 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Inspired by this thread, I decided to change the terminal emulator I'm reading this in from xterm to VT100. A few things occurred to me: One, no colour support is a bridge too far. Two: I was initially reading this thread by way of an Android xterm emulator, an emulation of an emulation of a device that emulated a teletype printer. Three: welling up inside me is a deep and perverse need to own an actual DEC terminal, or maybe even two, a VT100 and something a little more practical for everyday use.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:55 AM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:55 AM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's relatively easy to emulate well-documented microprocessors. Wayyyyyyyy harder to accurately emulate analog computers and mechanical acoustics—say, for recreating classic analog synths or the Magnavox Odyssey. (In my current line of work, if you're not outputting real-time native component video or audible waveforms, you're simulating, not emulating.)
Whoa, did not know this was the case w/r/t IP addresses and DNS. I don't think my old hosting provider knew either—my personal site had its own IP address until I moved to DreamHost last month.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:13 AM on January 24, 2015
Whoa, did not know this was the case w/r/t IP addresses and DNS. I don't think my old hosting provider knew either—my personal site had its own IP address until I moved to DreamHost last month.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:13 AM on January 24, 2015
There's a growing collection of beautifully emulated old synthesizers on iOS.
posted by lagomorphius at 11:35 AM on January 24, 2015
posted by lagomorphius at 11:35 AM on January 24, 2015
Devonian: "Hey hey, my my! Windows 3 will never die....
Where will this end? Will someone go to the Wayback Machine and recreate the 1995 Internet, running on emulated servers to a network of emulated Windows 3.11 machines via Winsock with Gopher and Veronica and all that?"
What do you think the 1995 Internet WAS???
posted by symbioid at 1:21 PM on January 24, 2015
Where will this end? Will someone go to the Wayback Machine and recreate the 1995 Internet, running on emulated servers to a network of emulated Windows 3.11 machines via Winsock with Gopher and Veronica and all that?"
What do you think the 1995 Internet WAS???
posted by symbioid at 1:21 PM on January 24, 2015
Where will this end? Will someone go to the Wayback Machine and recreate the 1995 Internet, running on emulated servers to a network of emulated Windows 3.11 machines via Winsock with Gopher and Veronica and all that?
We'll have to emulate the telephone system. Obvs.
I WANT TO GO TO THERE!!!
posted by The Legit Republic of Blanketsburg at 2:21 PM on January 24, 2015
We'll have to emulate the telephone system. Obvs.
I WANT TO GO TO THERE!!!
posted by The Legit Republic of Blanketsburg at 2:21 PM on January 24, 2015
Where will this end?
This universe as we understand it is about 80% of the way up a stack of nested emulators.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:02 PM on January 24, 2015
This universe as we understand it is about 80% of the way up a stack of nested emulators.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:02 PM on January 24, 2015
It's emulators all the way down.
Meanwhile the turtles are available if you need a shipping container lifted.
posted by localroger at 8:13 PM on January 24, 2015
Meanwhile the turtles are available if you need a shipping container lifted.
posted by localroger at 8:13 PM on January 24, 2015
OMG I meant *Powerbook* Duo 230. How distant our youthful loves become.
posted by spitbull at 7:19 PM on January 25, 2015
posted by spitbull at 7:19 PM on January 25, 2015
These days, my thoughts about the emulation projects are enunciated in fully at my ASCII weblog.
posted by jscott at 7:18 AM on January 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jscott at 7:18 AM on January 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
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posted by double block and bleed at 4:49 AM on January 24, 2015