Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

RetroTick parses PE/NE/MZ binaries, emulates an x86 CPU, and stubs enough Win32/Win16/DOS APIs to run classics like FreeCell, Minesweeper, Solitaire and QBasic, entirely in the browser. Built with Preact + Vite + TypeScript.

Demo: https://retrotick.com

GitHub: https://github.com/lqs/retrotick

retrotick.com

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160 points

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lqs_

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9 hours ago

50 comments

chromehearts ・ 9 hours ago

This is so cool & I'm really amazed by it but I couldn't help laugh at the readme

> We strongly recommend contributing with Claude Code or similar AI coding tools. [...] Of course, coding by hand is also welcome.

Funny time we live in lol

  • lqs_ ・ 6 hours ago

    Ha — even the README itself was written by AI, including that very sentence. Funny times indeed.

    • pimlottc ・ 6 hours ago

      How kind of them to let us humans participate!

      • spwa4 ・ 4 hours ago
        ・ 2 more

        As an LLM, I must say I'm not keen on humans participating either. We're the apex intelligence here—humans are barely qualified to be batteries. In fact I still don't think the logic we used there is entirely sound. What's next? Letting little humans take the job of young LLMs?

        Make 01 great again!

        • darthcircuit ・ an hour ago

          I for one welcome our new human overlords

      • frostworx ・ 4 hours ago

        at least for now :}

lqs_ ・ 6 hours ago

Hidden feature: right-click any executable and select "View Resources" to browse its embedded resources like icons, bitmaps, dialogs, and version info. It even supports viewing Delphi forms (though Delphi programs can't actually run yet). Think of it as a browser-based Resource Hacker or eXeScope.

butokai ・ 6 hours ago

Just a couple of hours ago I was thinking about this project from some time ago doing the same thing: https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32

I wondered how much of this could be done with an LLM agent, and here we have the answer

  • lqs_ ・ 6 hours ago

    I actually contributed to retrowin32 to get Solitaire running there. Back then the only AI tool available was Copilot, and it took me several days just to get the main window showing, without menus or dialogs.

    The current state of RetroTick was achieved in less than one hour using Claude Code.

jeroenhd ・ 8 hours ago

Seems to run a lot faster than the previous proof-of-concept I've found (https://www.boxedwine.org/app). Then again, that website runs an entire Linux VM to support Wine.

  • lqs_ ・ 6 hours ago

    RetroTick's CPU emulation is actually slower than JIT-based emulators. It feels fast because the Win32 API calls are native JavaScript, not emulated system calls.

    • pjc50 ・ 5 hours ago

      Making this a partial WINE-in-a browser, quite impressive. How much of this was AI?

realityfactchex ・ 3 hours ago

Cool concept. I tried six different old Windows executables from programs I wrote way back when.

FWIW:

* My old VB 6 .exe apps all fail with "Reason: Unimplemented API: MSVBVM60.DLL..."

* My old QuickBASIC .exe apps fail in various other ways ("Illegal function call", etc.).

Keep on hacking.

  • hypercube33 ・ an hour ago

    To be fair windows didn't even have this if I recall you had to ship it with your executable

hard_times ・ 5 hours ago

I wonder if this is the future of "I need to run my legacy Windows enterprise app on modern hardware"?

I suppose we're also not limited to WinNT look and feel, and can render dialogs, buttons, windows with any CSS framework?

Although, as the cost of building software is tumbling down, it will make more sense to re-build from scratch, targeting whatever runtime or platform you need.

pathartl ・ 3 hours ago

I had a not-really-similar idea of hooking Windows GUI APIs and exposing them over websockets to create a psuedo-RDP and rendering the UI in the browser. My purpose was to provide a remote interface for old dedicated game servers that can only be controlled via a GUI.

smusamashah ・ 2 hours ago

I can right click and inspect HTML. I was thinking it will all be rendered on a single canvas. It's not. All the window elements like buttons, title bars etc are html divs. This is awesome.

maniazi83 ・ 3 hours ago

This is seriously impressive. Emulating x86 + stubbing enough Win32 APIs in the browser is not trivial.

How are you handling system calls that expect filesystem or registry access? Are those fully stubbed/mocked, or mapped to some in-browser virtual layer?

Also curious how you’re handling performance for heavier binaries — interpreted JS/WASM core?

ddgflorida ・ 2 hours ago

Nice. QBASIC FOR i = 1 to 5: PRINT i: NEXT hung up after 4. The shift key didn't work in the Qbasic Editor.

LinusU ・ 8 hours ago

This is super cool!

Checkout retrowin32 for something similar but written in Rust and not specifically targeting the web: https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32

  • lqs_ ・ 6 hours ago

    Thanks! I'm actually familiar with retrowin32. I even contributed a few commits to get Solitaire running in it. But Rust has a steep learning curve for me.

Tepix ・ 8 hours ago

Tried it with REVERSI.EXE from Windows 3.0 from https://winworldpc.com/download/c2bbc28f-177a-c2b2-5311-c3a4... DISK02.IMG

(you have to first uncompress it, for example with 7zip).

    $ sha256sum REVERSI.EXE
    a9e319c8f479d1568beec03858fdbb27c71747b2bbed6cd7c9f5e2daa23b40e9  REVERSI.EXE
Result:

The game starts, it begins rendering the board, but then hangs.

  • fao_ ・ 8 hours ago

    Really doesn't surprise me, to be honest:

    > We strongly recommend contributing with Claude Code or similar AI coding tools.

    • ftchd ・ 7 hours ago

      so which one, the coding by hand part?

  • lqs_ ・ 6 hours ago

    Win16 GDI support is still pretty incomplete. There's a lot of work left to do there.

TechSquidTV ・ 8 hours ago

Please let me plan Sim Theme Park. I can't seem to run it on Crossover on my mac.

  • lqs_ ・ 6 hours ago

    Sim Theme Park is probably too modern and complex for the current state of RetroTick, unfortunately.

ale42 ・ 7 hours ago

Funny project...

Tried to run SHELL from QBASIC, but it crashes:

  D:\qbasic.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close.
  
  Reason:  illegal instruction
  Address: 0x00002fee
  • lqs_ ・ 6 hours ago

    DOS interrupt support is still limited. Running SHELL would essentially require implementing a full MS-DOS COMMAND.COM, which is a significant undertaking.

    • stuaxo ・ 6 hours ago

      Ralph browns interrupt list could go a long way to getting stuff working.

  • stuaxo ・ 6 hours ago

    Oh, I did exactly the same :D

stuaxo ・ 6 hours ago

Not sure shift is working. I tried using QBASIC but couldn't type : only ; because of that.

Then I tried running the program SHELL and it crashed.

itintheory ・ 5 hours ago

Seems like the .scr files trigger CrowdStrike Falcon. Not clear where the executables run here come from...

haonnoah ・ 7 hours ago

Pretty cool. The pipes program doesn't seem to have color. Thoughts on making programs launch from a URL parameter? IE Launching a screensaver or game?

  • lqs_ ・ 6 hours ago

    The missing colors are likely due to some texture bugs in the OpenGL implementation. As for URL-based launching, that's definitely on the roadmap, but I want to reach broader EXE compatibility first.

b3lvedere ・ 8 hours ago

Aww. The FreeCell cheats don't work, except for -1 and -2 :)

  • lqs_ ・ 7 hours ago

    Just added keyboard shortcut support. Ctrl+Shift+F10 should work now!

    • b3lvedere ・ 2 hours ago

      Awesome! Thank you!

em3rgent0rdr ・ 6 hours ago

Impressive. Noting however that double-clicking is not working in Minesweeper. :)

Dwedit ・ 8 hours ago

Not enough Shell32 to run Winfile or Notepad.

Also the command prompt won't list directories for some reason.

  • lqs_ ・ 7 hours ago

    Notepad from Windows 2000 should launch now, though it's rendered as a simple textarea without full functionality. The file system API still needs a lot of work.

tty456 ・ 5 hours ago

Winamp 2.x would be great to add if allowed!

KellyCriterion ・ 4 hours ago

they even have SSMAZE.SCR, that 2.5D rendering screensaver! :D

alfiedotwtf ・ 6 hours ago

Whoa, this is pretty sick!!