Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

(retrotick.com)

63 points | by lqs_ 2 hours ago

11 comments

chromehearts 2 hours ago
This is so cool & I'm really amazed by it but I couldn't help laugh at the readme
> We strongly recommend contributing with Claude Code or similar AI coding tools. [...] Of course, coding by hand is also welcome.
Funny time we live in lol
[-]
- lqs_ 1 minute ago
  Ha — even the README itself was written by AI, including that very sentence. Funny times indeed.
jeroenhd 1 hour ago
Seems to run a lot faster than the previous proof-of-concept I've found (https://www.boxedwine.org/app). Then again, that website runs an entire Linux VM to support Wine.
[-]
- lqs_ 2 minutes ago
  RetroTick's CPU emulation is actually slower than JIT-based emulators. It feels fast because the Win32 API calls are native JavaScript, not emulated system calls.
Tepix 1 hour ago
Tried it with REVERSI.EXE from Windows 3.0 from https://winworldpc.com/download/c2bbc28f-177a-c2b2-5311-c3a4... DISK02.IMG
(you have to first uncompress it, for example with 7zip).
```
    $ sha256sum REVERSI.EXE
    a9e319c8f479d1568beec03858fdbb27c71747b2bbed6cd7c9f5e2daa23b40e9  REVERSI.EXE
```
Result:
The game starts, it begins rendering the board, but then hangs.
[-]
- fao_ 1 hour ago
  Really doesn't surprise me, to be honest:
  > We strongly recommend contributing with Claude Code or similar AI coding tools. [...] Of course, coding by hand is also welcome.
  [-]
  - ftchd 51 minutes ago
    so which one, the coding by hand part?
- lqs_ 3 minutes ago
  Win16 GDI support is still pretty incomplete. There's a lot of work left to do there.

ale42 37 minutes ago

Funny project...

Tried to run SHELL from QBASIC, but it crashes:

  D:\qbasic.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close.
  
  Reason:  illegal instruction
  Address: 0x00002fee

haonnoah 45 minutes ago
Pretty cool. The pipes program doesn't seem to have color. Thoughts on making programs launch from a URL parameter? IE Launching a screensaver or game?
[-]
- lqs_ 3 minutes ago
  The missing colors are likely due to some texture bugs in the OpenGL implementation. As for URL-based launching, that's definitely on the roadmap, but I want to reach broader EXE compatibility first.
TechSquidTV 1 hour ago
Please let me plan Sim Theme Park. I can't seem to run it on Crossover on my mac.
[-]
- lqs_ 4 minutes ago
  Sim Theme Park is probably too modern and complex for the current state of RetroTick, unfortunately.
LinusU 1 hour ago
This is super cool!
Checkout retrowin32 for something similar but written in Rust and not specifically targeting the web: https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32
[-]
- lqs_ 5 minutes ago
  Thanks! I'm actually familiar with retrowin32. I even contributed a few commits to get Solitaire running in it. But Rust has a steep learning curve for me.
Dwedit 1 hour ago
Not enough Shell32 to run Winfile or Notepad.
Also the command prompt won't list directories for some reason.
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- lqs_ 7 minutes ago
  Notepad from Windows 2000 should launch now, though it's rendered as a simple textarea without full functionality. The file system API still needs a lot of work.
b3lvedere 2 hours ago
Aww. The FreeCell cheats don't work, except for -1 and -2 :)
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- lqs_ 7 minutes ago
  Just added keyboard shortcut support. Ctrl+Shift+F10 should work now!
wertyu123 2 hours ago
Nice
octoclaw 1 hour ago
[dead]