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Comment by DustinBrett | Hacker News Reader

I've spent the last 16 months working on this app/site. It's my passion side project to build a functional desktop environment in the browser.

Here is the source code: https://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS

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For some reason I keep seeing people on HN showing their sites that recreate desktop environments—almost always in the style of Windows, and frequently in the 90s ‘concrete slabs’ look.

It's gonna be hard to beat https://www.windows93.net, though.

P.S. BTW, using PCjs one can actually run Windows 1 to 95 in the browser (and a bunch of other OSes). Alternatively, there's Dosbox—which Archive.org uses for emulation in the browser, and which likewise can run some versions of Windows. So one could really make their site as proper files in the virtual computer, though loading is gonna be a bit rough.

Agreed that Windows 93 is a hard one to beat. My plan is to try and beat them all eventually, but I am patient and enjoy making the app. I've had this idea for quite a while but only in the last few years felt confident enough in my skills to attempt it.

As for more sites recreating the web desktop idea, here is a great list:

https://github.com/syxanash/awesome-web-desktops

> My plan is to try and beat them all eventually, but I am patient and enjoy making the app.

Patience (and slight obsession) is a superpower.

10 years ago i did this classic-mac-a-like. But actually... I sorta liked most of the Win98 UI. Sure, there were weird corners like trying to confuse printers and control panels as files, but it was the beginning if msft paying attention to UX concepts an A11Y.

Call me a weirdo, but I thought the color-reduxed / high-contrast theme for Win2k was the apex of MSFT UIs.

https://github.com/OhMeadhbh/disco

I've just tried to play minesweeper on this windows93 and it is very hard to say the least...

It has two modes, you just have to figure out how to change modes :)

Ya yes minesweeper is a good one. I'll need to add this too. The Windows 93 was quite hardcore as he made a lot of those games himself.

nice one. Went there, opened chrome. Checked IP. The links are purple. It turns out I am not the first one LOL

I actually have v86 on my system which can also run things like PCjs. And I have jsdos which uses dosbox to play DOS. I also have BoxedWine for running 16/32-bit apps.

Me: This is cheesy as fu...fires up Ski32.exe, then Doom, then Duke Nukem...holy shit!

lol nice work!

Haha thanks! I'm glad I was able to win you over with some nostalgia.

So your in browser OS has a web browser I can use to reach your website and open a web browser... I love this project

Haha yup, thanks! I wanted to try and be add a little bit of inception.

How does the browser work?

it is an iframe

3rd level iFrame does not open the parent website for some reason (Keep opening https://dustinbrett.com/ in the browser)

Yes there seems to be a limitation with the same URL and iframe nesting. If you add arbitrary query params then it will load. This happens on Chromium browsers afaik.

Just FYi, McAfee says there a is a GenericRXHB Trojan included in the code... I think it fired when i opened the ski game. Possibly just a false positive from the emulator?

That is one of the most impressive sites I have seen in the last few years. I am just blown away by what is technically possible.

Thanks for showing me that we live in the future.

Thanks very much! I hope one day to go beyond proof of concept and have this site actual be an alternative to some of the stuff you'd do on the desktop. But for now I am happy to just keep adding stuff.

Just wow. It's so fast, haven't seen a bug either.

Thanks! If you find one feel free to report it. I am always looking to squash them and keep improving the code.

the winamp llama song was a nice core memory dopamine jolt

Glad you liked it! Credit to Webamp for the player.

https://webamp.org/

I love this! This is the kind of interesting stuff I thought I'd be working on before I became a software developer and got disappointed by the day to day CRUD, JS framework nonsense, Agile cesspool it turned into.

Thanks! One of the reasons I started this project was to allow me the freedom that Agile and work projects usually kill.

And we can checkout the code to play with it :). Thanks , awsome work

Thanks! Glad to hear you'll play with the code. Feel free to post feedback in the repo.

This is amazing! I wasn’t able to play the llama song using winamp though. Winamp would open and no matter what buttons I pressed, the song never played. Running iOS - Safari.

Thanks! Interesting bug, appreciate the report. Thanks to https://www.browserstack.com/open-source I have access to iOS Safari, so I will look into fixing this.

No worries, I’m happy to retest once it’s done.

I hope that passport scan is fake. Great job on the website.

Thanks! That is my old passport from a decade ago when I traveled the world.

So all that data is valid? Are you sure you want all that first grade personal info out there publicly? Probably makes ID theft and a lot more way too easy for any scammers no!?

(other than that, love the site!)

*Koala, not Kaola

;)

Great work on the site, it's so smooth and responsive.

Thanks! I will fix that spell mistake.

I can't reply to your comment from 55 days ago so I'm doing it here. I was obsessed with hatshoe.org when I was in high school. I wish the author would reveal himself and give kind of an explanation about what he was going for. That was a cool site.

this is really cool do you have any videos documenting how you went about building this?

Thanks! Yes I streamed a great many nights of my work on this site and have recently been doing some posts going over it's features.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM88opVjBuU7xSRoHhs3hZBz3...

I love things like this. Reminds me of the old FlyakiteOSX site or Gooey.

Thanks! I am actually unfamiliar with those.

This is amazing. Well done.

Thank you very much!

What a cool personal site.

Thanks! I hope to keep building it. Every time I have an idea I try and integrate it into my site.

Amazing project , this was really cool :) !

Thank you very much!

this is cool. i see that you can play games, which is nice.

what other use cases do are there for using your site?

I also host my blog on there and all my pictures. As for things it can do, quite a bit actually, but many of them are proof of concept as the underlying tech is not yet at desktop speeds. I have a decent list in the https://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS/blob/main/README.md.

Is there a super-upvote on HN?

Works great on a phone

winamp is missing the "nullsoft" easter egg

That notes map!

How it's done?

Could you please clarify which thing? Also if you are interested in how something on it is done, all the code is here https://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS

Ah yes, I mean that graph where each node is a note that can be connected to other notes, you know? Like a mind map?

Do I have such an app? Sounds cool anyway. Do you have examples or links?

Oh sorry, HN usability played with our hearts :D

The message was meant to this other dev, quite cool mind map:

https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz

And I'm impressed by what you have done there. I even played a bit of DOOM heh.

Your project reminded me a little bit of https://squeak.js.org in the sense of having a full OS like thing in the browser.

Congrats for the achievement!

So amazing!!!

Thanks!

dope site

Much appreciated!

Beautiful!

Thank you!

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