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16-bit Windows (Windows 1.x, 2.x, 3.0, 3.1, etc.) on 64-bit Windows

Language: C

Except it is (at least for the use-case of 16-bit apps that are unsupported by a 64-bit Windows) https://github.com/otya128/winevdm although no updates since 2021, but maybe it was "good enough" for whatever they were targeting.
There's even a way to run 16-bit Windows binaries on 64-bit Windows now.

https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

here you are : 16-bit Windows (Windows 1.x, 2.x, 3.0, 3.1, etc.) on 64-bit Windows

https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

Not sure if this would help in this exact case, but I've used OTVDM to run some old games successfully.

https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

I prefer DOSBox-X to DOSBox because it's easier to run; but it sounds like neither one is what you want.

Have you heard of or tried "MS-DOS Player"? It seems to convert binaries into a format that Windows can understand. I think you have to do it on a per-file basis so it might be more of a headache than it's worth; but it's out there!

http://takeda-toshiya.my.coocan.jp/msdos/index.html (original site)

https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2011/02/11/ms-dos-player-...

[edit]There's also winevdm which can run 16 bit windows binaries on 64 bit windows. It has DOS support but it's incomplete and it points back to MS-DOS player in it's readme...

https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

> Your best bet at running 16 bit Windows applications on a modern OS is running them via Wine.

Fun fact, you can use a WineVDM-based 16bit emulator on Windows[0] that translates 16bit calls to 32/64bit calls and install it system-wide thus allowing the use of 16bit programs in 64bit Windows. Here are two examples from screenshots i have around: Microlathe[1], a small utility to build 3D models by rotating a line around an axis (i also made my own clone[3] of it) and [2]a free Smalltalk environment (Smalltalk Express - which i actually consider one of the simplest Smalltalk environments since it only contains a small subset of what you'd find in a modern one thus making it easier to grok).

[0] https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

[1] https://i.imgur.com/e26mqWP.png

[2] https://i.imgur.com/r5aQNyJ.png

[3] http://runtimeterror.com/tools/lila/

Never knew the term roguelike or similar until way after the fact, but I really enjoyed Castle of the Winds[1] when I stumbled upon it as a kid. Countless hours sunk into that game, and now I want to take another stab... Thankfully the author has released it into the public domain[2], awesome!

Now to see if I can get it running on 64-bit Windows[3], it being a 16-bit Windows game.

[1]: https://www.mobygames.com/game/castle-of-the-winds

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_the_Winds

[3]: https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

You can run 16 bit apps on 64 bit Windows with winevdm https://github.com/otya128/winevdm