14 DAY TRIAL // For some reason, Microsoft decided to kill off its Band activity tracker, even though everyone expected the company to launch a third-generation model running Windows 10 and featuring many more goodies thanks to this operating system.
Having a more advanced operating system on the wrist, however, is not entirely a dream that’ll never come true, as a post on 314reactor.com shows that with some skills, you can actually get Windows 98 running on a Raspberry Pi-powered smartwatch.
Now, don’t imagine that doing it is a piece of cake because it’s not. The whole thing involves some skills and parts, starting with a Raspberry Pi Model A+ and ending with virtual machine software QEMU. In other words, Windows 98 isn’t running directly on the device, but is only emulated with this virtual machine app.
The resulting device has a 2.4-inch touchscreen and gets its juice from a 1,000 mAh battery, which is more than you normally find in today’s smartwatches, and this can only be a good thing. Without a doubt, however, running QEMU and Windows 98 requires more power than a smartwatch-optimized operating system.
Just for fun
In case you’re wondering why anyone would bring Windows 98 on a smartwatch, the answer pretty much comes down to an experiment.
“I also love emulation, the idea of running an operating system on virtual hardware? That’s awesome. It’s like the Matrix, or something. On top of this I love wearable/small tech and nowadays I have the ability to make things like this. So I thought, wouldn’t it be ridiculous and awesome to have Windows 98 on my wrist?” the creator of the project says.
Windows 98 boots quite slowly and the hardware upgrades that you can do (though not recommended) improve things a little bit, but other than that, it’s pretty clear that this project is created just for fun and nothing more.
And yet, it’s absolutely amazing what the Raspberry Pi lets you do, especially when you have the necessary skills to create more complex projects.
