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  • Windows 3.11 on an HTC Nexus One

    Tech Stuff
    16th May 2010 -
    By Eric Tate
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
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    Are you a fan of nostalgia? Do you have an always loving spot in your heart for the goodies from geek past? Do you enjoy the feeling of satisfaction that comes along with doing things that haven’t been accomplished before? Well, if so, you and I have a lot in common.

    It’s those feeling and more that compelled me to get Windows 3.11 running and operational on my Nexus One. Click on for a step-by-step guide with photos followed by a video of it in action…

    Before I begin, I must give a HUGE thank you to “drraccoon” for having been the first to accomplish this task using his Motorola Droid. I was first attracted to doing this task after finding his post regarding it over on Android Central and then reading the step-by-step instructions that he posted on his site. I wouldn’t have even thought to do this without him having led the way. The steps for getting this to work on the Nexus One differ, however, due to certain limitations that will be covered in this guide.

    Disclaimer: This guide is for informational purposes only. If you choose to try, I cannot be held responsible for any damage that occurs as a result.

    Before we begin, let’s start with a list of hardware requirements that you will need:

    • HTC Nexus One (or any Android device capable of running ADosBox. Performance may vary)
    • Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard (I am using the iGo Stowaway Keyboard)
    • Computer (I used a MacBook Pro but main requirement is ability to use DosBox)

    If you are familiar with the Android OS, one thing you may be saying “huh?” about at this moment is that there is no HID support within the Bluetooth stack to allow the use of wireless keyboards. But we won’t let that stop us now, will we? Since ADosBox does not yet support the use of the onscreen virtual keyboard, we have no other choice! Don’t worry, there’s a solution that I’ll cover in here shortly.

    And now, the software requirements:

    • On your phone:
    • ADosBox
    • Teksoft BlueInput for Android (this will give us the HID input we need for the iGo Stowaway keyboard… sorta). You will need the paid version because you need use of the Enter key. Also, this software is so buggy and inaccurate that I do NOT recommend it for anything outside of a project like this.
    • On your computer:
    • DosBox
    • An installation image of Windows 3.11

    NOTE: While I personally don’t care where you get the installation image of Windows 3.11, I do not condone piracy and no piracy was used to accomplish this project. I am a legal owner of two copies of Windows 3.11 (both unused and complete in factory shrink wrap until I finally cracked one open for this project). Do NOT contact me asking where to get a Windows 3.11 image. You will not get a response.

    Step One: Prepare the Windows Image…
    To accomplish this, I combined all eight of my Windows 3.11 floppies into a single installation directory. Using DosBox on my MacBook Pro, I mounted the install directory that I created (win31) as C: using the following command: mount c ~/documents/win31 (your command will vary depending on where you save your installation directory. Once C: is mounted, switch to it using the command C: and then being setup by using the setup command.

    Once you have completed setup, Windows 3.11 will be installed within your installation directory in a subdirectory titled WINDOWS. Do NOT modify/delete this!

    Step Two: Prepare your phone…
    First, install Teksoft’s BlueInput and verify that your Bluetooth keyboard will work with it. To test, compose a new SMS or e-mail by first changing the input method to BlueInput. MAKE SURE THE ENTER KEY WORKS. Once you have tested, you can switch back to your standard input for now.
    Next, install ADosBox on your phone. Easiest method is to put the APK on your SD card, open it using App Manager, and install. After installation, you must make sure that you place the file dosbox.conf on the root of your SD card for ADosBox to function properly.

    Step Three: Bridging the gap…
    Have you made it this far? Good job! You’re almost there! Your next step is to copy the WINDOWS directory that was created in step one to the root of your SD card. It is very important that you place this on the root and not within another directory in order to avoid complications when trying to run (I’ll get into that in a minute).

    Step Four: Bringing on the Windows goodness…
    Ready to go? Alright! Let’s dooo it… First, change your default input method to BlueInput and verify that your bluetooth keyboard is functioning. Next, load ADosBox. Now here is where we run into a slight problem. Normally, you would be booting Windows from C: but unfortunately, BlueInput doesn’t seem to work with any of the symbols on the bluetooth keyboard!!! (iGo Stowaway in my case, I cannot verify whether it does or not on other keyboards). So how are we going to mount C: properly? Well, we’re not! See, you don’t need it to be on C:, it just commonly is. Thankfully, ADosBox already mounts S: as the root of your SD card and makes it your current directory. This is why I said to make sure you put WINDOWS directly on the SD root since you can’t use symbols to navigate down to subdirectories!!! Using your bluetooth keyboard, go into the WINDOWS directory using this command: cd windows and if you are successful, you will now be in the S:\WINDOWS directory.

    Here comes the Windows goodness!

    Go ahead and use the following command, it’s a complicated one so make sure you triple-check it for spelling errors before pressing the Enter key:

    win

    Did you type it in correctly? If so, you have accomplished the feeling of the command itself… WIN!!! You should now be enjoying the feeling of satisfaction and the visual joys of the Windows 3.11 splash screen. The default program groups will not load up. You will receive an error for each the first time that Windows boots. Just click no on the error messages that come up asking if Windows should ignore them next time.

    What can you actually do with this? Well, not much honestly. Using the touchscreen to navigate the mouse is very difficult. You will find yourself dragging windows around much more than you would like to. Using the trackball isn’t going to do anything, so no need to even bother trying. Go ahead and use the Run command in the file menu to browse to any of the built-in Windows programs. The first thing I did was draw a bunch of scribbles in MSPaint. I can’t seem to figure out how to get the pointer to actually depress from whatever it is on so once I’m in MSPaint, I can’t get it to stop drawing!

    And yes, you can use your Bluetooth keyboard still to type within Windows.

    And even though I can’t (and wouldn’t want to) actually use it, I went ahead and tried to install AOL 2.5. The install failed but I am going to see if I can find the problem and get it to install. It’s not going to do me any good since I don’t have an AOL account and because there is no internet connectivity within Windows 3.11 on the phone, but I want to get the program installed “just because”.

    I hope this guide has helped you along in your journey into geeky nostalgia. Please go ahead and leave a comment below with your thoughts.

    Click here for the photoset on Flickr

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