RetroTick – run classic Windows & DOS programs in a browser

Qishuai Liu hosts retrotick.com where you can run classic Windows and DOS executables directly in your browser. No installation required. Just drag, drop, and watch programs come alive in a web page.

RetroTick is an x86 virtual machine and Windows/DOS API compatibility layer built from scratch in TypeScript. It parses PE (Win32), NE (Win16), and MZ (DOS) binaries, executes x86 machine code instruction by instruction, and reimplements a subset of the Win32, Win16, and DOS API surface, enough to boot several .exe files from the classic Windows era and render their GUIs in the browser.

What’s Under the Hood

• x86 CPU emulator — x87 FPU, lazy flag evaluation, 32-bit protected mode (flat model) and 16-bit real mode with segment:offset addressing, IVT, and PSP
• PE/NE/MZ binary loader — Parses headers, maps sections, resolves imports, extracts resources
• Win32 API compatibility layer — kernel32, user32, gdi32, advapi32, comctl32, comdlg32, shell32, msvcrt, opengl32, glu32, ddraw, ole32, oleaut32, winmm, winspool, ws2_32, version, psapi, shlwapi, iphlpapi, msacm32, and more
• Win16 API compatibility layer — KERNEL, USER, GDI, SHELL, COMMDLG, MMSYSTEM, KEYBOARD, DDEML, WIN87EM
• DOS interrupt emulation — INT 21h services for MZ executables
• OpenGL 1.x → WebGL2 translation — Full immediate-mode pipeline mapped to WebGL2, powering 3D screen savers
• Window manager — Multiple windows, z-order, focus, taskbar, message dispatch, common dialogs
• GDI rendering engine — Bitmaps, brushes, pens, regions, text, DIB-to-Canvas mapping
• Virtual filesystem — IndexedDB-backed persistent storage for uploaded files

Check out the site at retrotick.com and also on GitHub. The project is released under CC0 1.0 Universal license.

 

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