Ever thought: 'You know what my iPhone is missing? Windows 3.1!' Well never fear, because Windows 3.1 is here -- courtesy of iDos aka DosPad. The folks over at PikiGeek have put together a guide to getting the Grandfather of the modern Windows operating system running on your iDevice of choice. You unfortunately need a jailbroken device, but with the latest release of redsn0w or limera1n, even iOS4.1 is unlocked with ease. After a bit of fiddling, you'll be able to play Minesweeper and even SkiFree, with Windows 3.1 running at full speed. How's that for progress!
Pikigeek step by step instructions: We’ve all heard about it, and we all got stupid-jealous when we found out that the coveted iDos, a full Dos emulator, was taken off the App Store by those indecisive bastards at Apple. Then, we started seeing images of old-school Dos games pop up on the net, which made us even more unhappy we weren’t in the elite group of iDos owners. That final straw for me was when I saw a few snapshots of Windows 3.0 – my first operating system – running at full speed on a damn cell phone.
Well covet no more. We’re about to hook you up with the very same treatment in this full guide to getting Windows 3.1 up and running on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
First and foremost, you must have a Jailbroken iPhone. Jailbreaking is super easy, and comes highly recommended, as it gives your phone so many new superpowers. We won’t go into that, but if you need a few reasons why to make the jump to the freedom side of the fence, check out Gizmodo’s take on it.
Now, you’re going to need to have the installation files for Windows 3.1 beforehand. We recommend using those floppy disks you inevitably have lying around. If you managed to misplace them, you’re on your own.
THE GUIDE:
Still with us? Great. First off, add the Cydia source: http://www.litchie.net/cydia to your list of sources, under the “Manage” tab within Cydia. Then locate and install DosPad Beta (1.92 is the latest). Next, you’ll need to copy the Windows installation files over to your iPhone, and place them in a folder named “winsetup” on /var/mobile/. (We recommend using WinSCP, but make sure you have OpenSSH installed on your device.) Create an additional folder named “w31” on /var/mobile/, which is where Windows will be installed. Now you’re ready for the fun stuff.
Open up DosPad and type “mount –u c”, which will unmount your C drive. Then type “mount c ~/w31”, which mounts your C drive to that empty folder we created earlier. Do that again, this time for the A drive, by typing “mount a ~/winsetup”. This mounts all of those loose installation files in the winsetup folder to the A drive, as if you had the installation disks inserted into your virtual floppy drive. Type “a:” to change the directory to the A drive. Then type “setup”, and your installation of Windows 3.1 should begin!
Run through the installation, which takes about 15 minutes. When finished, you’ll be asked to reboot your machine. Simple exit DosPad and clear it from your Multitask bar. Relaunch it, and type “mount –u c”, “mount c ~/w31”, “c:” and “cd WINDOWS”. Finally, type a simple and victorious “win” and hit enter. Welcome to Windows 3.1
