• tetris11@lemmy.ml
    371·
    10 months ago

    Desktop - Linux - Yes, likely. If not, here’s a flatpak
    Desktop - Windows - Maybe it still runs in a compatibility mode?
    Desktop - iMac - Here’s an emulator, good luck.

    Mobile - PostMarketOS - Yes, likely. If not, here’s a flatpak
    Mobile - Android - Maybe? Try it and see if you get permission denial
    Mobile - iPhone - Fuck you, no.

    • dan@upvote.au
      27·
      10 months ago

      Windows is pretty good with backwards compatibility, probably the best out of anything. I can run Visual Basic apps I wrote in the early 2000s on Windows 11 and they still run fine. Some old 32-bit games work fine too. You can even run some 16-bit Windows 3.0 apps on 32-bit Windows 10 if you manually install NTVDM through the Windows features (it was never ported to 64-bit though)

      Linux is okay for backcompat but I’m not sure an app I compiled 20 years ago would still run today.

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
        21·
        10 months ago

        Tell that to video games, which constantly need a compat mode enabled

        • dan@upvote.au
          11·
          10 months ago

          The fact that a compat mode exists means that Microsoft put effort into backwards compatibility. Windows even emulates some old bugs for old popular apps that depended on them. I don’t think any other OS does that.

          • toastal@lemmy.ml
            3·
            10 months ago

            I don’t like Microsoft Windows at all, but you are absolutely right about doing a good job with backwards compatibility.

            Linux isn’t so backwards compatible, but with much of it having open source code, you can often compile it again yourself—tho having been written in a language that offers good backwards compatibility also helps.