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Gratuitous geekery

It's not always about how life can be made easier using tech. Sometimes it's cool to do stuff just because we can.

Christo van Gemert
By Christo van Gemert, ITWeb journalist
Johannesburg, 29 Oct 2010

With a review desk that always has some form of gadgetry on it, I'm always in the “what does this do” mindset. Speakers? They play music. Phones? Make calls. Smartphones? Make expensive calls. Graphics cards? Run my games faster.

Each item has a specific use, and generally those things I look at are the ones people consider when they purchase them. There are niches, here and there. Where it can be warranted, I'll explore some of the more popular alternative uses for a gadget - but not often enough to get my imagination going.

Thinking about what else I can do with a gadget can be tiring. It's difficult to think outside the box, especially with the hustle and bustle of an online newsroom keeping me occupied.

Every now and then, though, my old, tiring, news-processing brain gets a break. Thanks to some enterprising individuals, and my “contacts” on the Internet, I'll get a heads-up. I'm saved the hassle of being creative and have an awesome idea delivered on a golden platter.

This past week saw a bit of that take place. I was at home, something playing on the media centre while I caught up on Twitter and my favourite forums. One forum member made a desperate post urging iPad users to grab an application from the iTunes App Store. It was for an application called iDOS - a DOS emulator, replete with flashing prompt, retro keyboard graphics and pre-installed games.

I'm saved the hassle of being creative and have an awesome idea delivered on a golden platter.

Christo van Gemert, consumer technology editor, ITWeb

Alarm bells went off. Apple's recently-released guidelines for App Store developers had one catch-all section that said “applications may not execute external code”. This probably slipped through the approval process because, on the face of it, it just looks like one of those junk apps with cheesy graphics. “Oh, PC user nostalgia”, is what the queue moderator must have thought.

But this is not the case. With the introduction of the iPad version of iOS, Apple allowed applications to have their own bit of file space on the device. This storage can be used to save files on the iPad or iPhone, and when connected to iTunes it's possible to retrieve them, for further manipulation, e-mailing or backup. It is also possible to upload files to an application's file space.

In this case, it's possible to upload executable files that run in DOS. Old games - like the DOS versions of DigDug and Ms Pacman that are bundled with iDOS - can be found in many places on the Internet. Some are even abandonware, so it's legal to download them.

Not quite as legal, but still something I had to try out, was sourcing and installing a copy of Windows 3.1. Uncle Google helped with that, and soon I was uploading a ZIP archive with the installation files for the 22-year-old operating system.

Indeed, the younger journalists in the office didn't quite grasp the significance of me running an ancient, unusable operating system on a modern device. Some of them hadn't even seen Windows 3.1 until I showed it to them. Strangely, though, their eyes lit up when I double-clicked on Solitaire. The game's up, colleagues. Now I know how you spend deadline hour.

They did have something in common with the older techies in the office: both parties kept asking, “Why?”

Why do this if it's of no use? Why go through the effort if it can't even connect to the Internet?

Well, guys, it's because I can.

* To document the boot up and prove that Windows 3.1 does run on the iPad, I shot this short video. Enjoy!

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