14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft open-sources old projects from time to time, and now it’s the turn of an app that many people forgot existed in the first place (in the case of the younger generation, they may not even know this little app was a thing back in the day).
The classic 3D Movie Maker is a piece of software that looks ridiculous right now, but in 1995, it was quite a sensation.
As you can easily figure out by simply reading its name, the app offered a way to mess with 3D objects and then create videos, and given this happened in 1995, you can imagine how advanced the whole thing was considered to be.
Fast forward to 2022, and here’s Microsoft deciding to make the project open source and therefore give everybody access to the code.
It goes without saying 3D Movie Maker may not even run on some newer computers, but even so, getting access to the source code of this app is something that devs might actually really enjoy.
Oldie but goldie
The decision to open-source 3D Movie Maker was announced by Scott Hanselman on Twitter a few hours ago.
“Hey friends - we've open sourced the code to 1995's Microsoft 3D Movie Maker https://github.com/microsoft/Microsoft-3D-Movie-Maker Thanks to @jeffwilcox and the Microsoft OSS office as well our friends in legal and those who continue to put up with me being a nudzh. Thanks to @foone for the idea! Enjoy,” he tweeted.
The GitHub page comes with a warning that just makes sense.
“This project is unlikely to build successfully under modern hardware/software, but you can get started with compilation and get partial completed binaries. The source files in this repo are for historical reference and will be kept static, and this repository will be archived. Feel free to fork this repo and experiment.”