This hacker brought Windows 95 to the PlayStation 2, and it kind of works

Windows 95 was a big release for Microsoft in so many ways, and it was a major success, as the software giant sold millions of copies of what we can now refer to as a vintage OS. Windows has undergone significant changes since then, but we can still see remnants of it in more modern versions of Windows. However, these are too few or modified in such a way that they can barely take us down to the Windows 95 memory lane.

This is where retro computing comes into the picture. From turning Windows 95 into a standalone app to installing the OS on a Nintendo 3DS, we've seen people with the knack keep coming up with such fun projects to invoke nostalgia and win praise. The latest one has come from the YouTube channel MetraByte, as the person behind it has managed to run Windows 95 on a PlayStation 2.

PlayStation 2 can run Windows 95, but is it worth it just for the fun?

Running Windows 95 on a PlayStation 2 is a big deal because the gaming console was never designed to run standard PC operating systems. Part of the reason it can't run PC operating systems is because of the PlayStation 2's MIPS-based CPU, which is totally different from x86 processors Windows 95 was designed to run on.

This is the reason the hacker couldn't run Windows 95 natively on the PlayStation 2 console. Instead, MetraByte used an x86 emulator called Bochs to achieve the feat. Bochs does exactly what Sony's console was lacking: it makes the PlayStation 2 act like a computer that can handle x86 instructions. The hacker had tried several other methods before, but Bochs produced the best outcome.

Overall, it took 14 hours to install Windows 95 on the PlayStation 2. And this clearly shows that this isn't for the impatient. That said, not everyone will like what they see after going through all those steps. Based on what we've seen in MetaByte's project, Windows 95 on PlayStation 2 isn't a smooth experience. In fact, it's far from that.

As the video below shows, it's excruciatingly painful to navigate through different parts of Windows 95, as the mouse is unusable. So, it'd take a lot of time and patience to use the keyboard for navigation. However, since the mouse pointer appears in the middle of the screen, and you can't move it, there is no way the Windows 95-powered PlayStation 2 can draw anything on the Paint app.

However, since keyboard accessibility is available, you can save a blank image. It fails spectacularly in another area where most retro computing projects succeed — running Doom. So, the limitations are such that you wouldn't want to run Windows 95 for a long time, even for fun, but it's still an achievement.