Windows 95 Partially Runs on a Modded PlayStation 2, But Can’t Handle Doom

Jace, you know, that quirky tech tinkerer from MetraByte or whatever, did this wild experiment. They tried—well, they actually did, sorta—get Windows 95 to run on a PlayStation 2. Did it work perfectly? Pfft, no. Doom wouldn’t even launch. Not sure why, but somehow that’s the charm, right?

So, Windows 95, classic stuff, right? 1995 debut, and the PS2 came out in 2000. You’d think PS2 would just laugh and run it without breaking a sweat. But nah, it turned into this comedy of errors. Something about x86 code on Sony’s MIPS? Yeah, that technical stuff went way over my head.

Anyway, I watched Jace’s video—they crammed like, hours and hours of work into a short vid (thank goodness, my patience isn’t saint-like). They’ve got this setup with a modded PS2, controller with a keyboard, USB, external hard drive, you name it. I spotted some PlayStation .ELF files, whatever those are. And emulators, too: DOSBox, Bochs.

Can you feel the struggle? Jace said it took “47 tries” or something to boot that old operating system. So dramatic. They first used DOSBox, which fizzled out pretty spectacularly, then switched to Bochs. It’s supposed to be slower but accurate. Accurate, ha!

Watching them deal with system chaos… errors galore. Every move seemed to take eons. Made me feel Jace’s frustration; you could almost taste the agony through the screen. And yet, they did it—a Windows 95 setup screen greeted them on the PS2. Miracle or madness?

Get this—it took “14 hours” (ouch) to complete just the install. Imagine waiting that long. They got to the desktop, tried to mess around with Paint, but no mouse, no fun. Doom was a no-go. Maybe it was destiny, or the universe saying, “Nope.”

Honestly, it’s not about success but the journey or whatever. A bit like life, maybe. Messy, ridiculous, often pointless, but you learn something. I think.

If you’re curious, follow Jace on MetraByte or catch Tom’s Hardware for more quirky adventures.