First step of getting cool Win 3.1 install these days is VBESVGA driver. Kudos to https://github.com/PluMGMK/vbesvga.drv

I think 16M colours looks pretty great, but it is noticeably slower than 256 colours.

A bit of a technicality, but it makes a lot of sense in terms of UX: doslfn to add Long File Name support in Calmira, and IFA to add Long File Name support to the basic Windows applications.

And while we're at it, let's get some sort of a wallpaper. This one is 256 colours, because Paintbrush 3.x and Paint 95+ aren't really compatible, and the only way I can convert images to this old system (for now) is ImageMagick gif 256 colours -> pcx -> bmp

Shocking Windows 3.1 development continues. Now I have win32s, which will allow me to run some Win32 applications on top of DOS and Win16 kernel. Freecell looks like any other app, but it is Win32 app, very MVP.

And IE 5.0 is being installed but still needs a bit of tweaking. It has a 128-bit encryption module, but it's useless, because no one supports SSL anymore.

Note WinRAR behind the IE50 installer.

It's taking longer than it should have, but I have working TCP/IP on Windows 3.1, and it plays along with IE 5.0. Google stopped supporting IE5 recently, but I learned about Wiby not that long ago, and I like it.

But we're far from being done.

Day 2 of abnormal Windows 3.1 functions. Internet Explorer 5 decided to stop working after I tweaked some thing, so it's Netscape Navigator time. It looks so sleek...

(What you're seeing here is Windows 3.1 with Calmira XP shell that adds taskbar and desktop, and a VBESVGA driver)

Okay, this totally should count as an abomination. I associate Space Cadet Pinball with Windows XP, because it was not shipped with Windows 95/98 by default.

But this Space Cadet is actually a win32s application from 1995, and works just fine on Windows 3.1. It looks especially "normal" because of Calmira XP adding Windows XP decorations to Win 3.1. The only tell is window title bars. Woah.

I was trying to do something about Java on Windows 3.1, and I sort of did. First things first, JRE doesn't work. Even when forced to install, it doesn't work. It relies on MSVCRT and long file name support in the kernel, which... Is not great. But I won't give up.

Both Netscape 4 and IE 5.0 have Java 1.1 support, so I can run some Java programs if I explain the browsers how to run them.

But there aren't that many Java 1.1 programs, are there...

While I'm thinking about Java on Windows 3.1, here are some more unusual things for my cursed setup: fMSX, an emulator of an MSX/MSX2 home computer, and notGNU - an emacs clone.

There are many interesting programs for Win3.1 I'm skipping for now, like Photoshop, or CorelDraw, or POVRAY and various 3D editors, or MathCad, or AutoCAD...

But those are programs that people used to run "normally". This time I'm trying to find rare gems or do things that most people won't :D

@nina_kali_nina

Huh. I didn't know 95 changed the BMP format.

@nina_kali_nina

Was it *backward* compatible, at least?

(By “backward compatible” I mean Windows 95 can read BMPs from 3.1, 3.1 can read BMPs from 3.0, etc.)

@nina_kali_nina @argv_minus_one

A reference on BMP types.
Includes a version that is: vaguely specified, never seen in a wild, not created by anything, read by a single program (from the reference's author).
Yes, it's never that simple!

https://entropymine.com/jason/bmpsuite/bmpsuite/html/bmpsuite.html