@ Richard Steiner

To your list of meritorious Win3.1 apps, let me add Improv 2.0 (never, alas, really finished), Lotus 1-2-3 release 5 (the single best spreadsheet program), and FontMonster. Also WordPerfect 5.1, the best word processor ever written.

However, these will all run under Win95 & Win98, which are far more stable OSes than Win 3.1. When I was using Win3.1, I'd have to shut it down and reboot two or three times most workdays because the GUI heap would become corrupted. I learned that the instant I saw *any* "funny" on the display, to save my work and reboot.

If you want to run these inside Linux, your best bet is probably to use Virtual Box, as Wine is glitchy in its handling of older Windows software.

So unlike Windows Phone...

So unlike Windows Phone, Android can now execute Windows applications. So a Linux distribution (if you can even call Android that) is now more compatible with Windows than a "Windows" distribution.

Vista on iPhone?

Presumably you mean "RDP client on the iPhone"? Unless I missed something huge

How about checking some other facts (or proofreading)?

DOSBox is usually used to run DOS programs on PCs that _are_ running more modern OSes like Windows 7 or Linux. It's not used because those PCs can't run newer OSes. It's because the old DOS games can't run on the newer PCs with more modern OSes.

Perhaps the line:

"DOSBox is usually used to run old MS-DOS games for Intel x86 PCs that can't run modern operating systems such as Window XP, Vista, Linux, or FreeBSD."

Was meant to be written as:

"DOSBox is usually used to run old MS-DOS games that can't run on modern Intel x86 PC operating systems such as Window XP, Vista, Windows 7, Linux, or FreeBSD."

Windows

"It's completely useless, but really damn cool."

Where have I heard someone say that about WIndows before?

File names

Win 3.1 did NOT support long file names.

Long File Names

Well, Windows 3.1 did come with long file names support, but only in File Manager. The reason being workgroup/network support. You could trick File Manager into supporting long file names locally by installing LFN support TSRs into DOS and couple it with a custom command intepreter like 4DOS, but no, it doesn't do LFN out of the box locally, because DOS doesn't.

Oh dear...

..."It's completely useless, but really damn cool"

Err no, it's not cool.

Naked Volleyball with a bunch of models, that's cool.

Surfing the waves in the Bahama's or the Artic, that's cool.

BASE jumping blindfolded, that's cool.

Porting Windows 3.1 onto a phone, trust me that ain't cool.

Hmm..

OpenDNS rejects this link as a phishing site. I tried a couple of proxies and they returned an error:

http://androidblog.therevolve.com/?p=12

This has been a public service announcement, all harsh words and hissy fits will be ignored. Thank you.

Truetype

The killer feature of Windows 3.1 over 3.0 was Truetype WYSIWYG support. I loved it and later versions brought no killer improvements for me. When support for modern hardware became an issue, I moved on to Linux, never to return.

Just So

I still have a MSDOS v5.0 / Windows 3.11 dual booting with Kubuntu on an AMD 64. I use the Windows occassionally as I have an old but fast scanner with drivers only for Windows 3.x or Win95. Win 95 will not work on the AMD 64, but DOS / Win 3.x are fine.

I've even tried playing the freebee DOS game where two gorillas throw exploding bananas at eachother, but each banana throw takes spends about 15 minutes in the air and when it explodes DOS crashes.

So what's new?!

I've been running Windows 3.1 on DOSBox on my FreeBSD box for ages, just for nostalgia's sake (not because it's "really damn cool"). How is this any different? Sorry but I don't see how this is newsworthy.

Oh and as others have mentioned, Windows 3.1 did *not* have long file name support out of the box.

Broken record...

It's amazing how many people seem like they can't be bothered to even read the first couple comments and continue to repost "3.1 didn't have long file names!".