In an interesting development, Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet has been jailbroken, allowing users to run ARM-based apps on the device’s desktop for the first time. Earlier this week, Irish programmer Steve Troughton-Smith used the publicly available jailbreak to run an old version of Rhapsody, Apple’s developmental version of OS X Server from over a decade ago.
Mr. Troughton-Smith used Bochs, an open source emulator, to run Rhapsody on his Surface desktop. “Booted Apple’s Rhapsody in Bochs on jailbroken Microsoft Surface, because Windows 95 is too boring,” he stated upon release of the image demonstrating the technical feat. No additional information has been released but now that a proof of concept has been established, others will likely soon begin to push the technical limits of Redmond’s latest hardware project.
Other apps such as Chrome and Firefox have also been ported to run on the device. While these developments may not spur any sales for Microsoft’s struggling platform, they have thus far provided a healthy dose of nostalgia to longtime Mac users.
Below is an Apple presentation video from 1997 explaining the company’s initial plans to integrate the technology it acquired from NeXT.
[via The Verge]
1 Comments
Mods to run an Apple OS on a tablet are fun but not too new. I have a Nook rooted to run OS 6.8 and 7.2 so that I can play some of my older Mac games.
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