I got my start with computers in the late 1980s on an Apple IIe. By 1990, my father had been bringing home a laptop from his work. When he was not working, I would use Microsoft QBasic (here is a [JavaScript implementation](https://baud.rs/ULa33t) of QBasic). Three years later, we had a Gateway 2000 desktop computer. It sported an Intel 486 50Mhz with 24MB of ram and about 512MB of disk space. Also in 1993, I was able to get a real copy of Visual Basic 3 from a friend who had gone off to college; he bought it for me from the campus bookstore.
Fast forward thirty years, and here, in 2023, I'm all about single board computers, and in particular, Arm-based SBCs.
Can one run software that was written thirty years ago that was intended to run on a completely different architecture? The answer is yes, and it is damn simple, too.
sudo apt install dosbox
Download [Windows 3.11](https://baud.rs/VxmrPl) from [archive.org](https://baud.rs/5ZAcYu).
Unzip the archive
Run `dosbox`
dosbox
Mount the Windows 3.11 directory as drive `c:`
mount c /home/pi/win3.11
c:
setup
Follow the instructions on the screen.
Installing Visual Basic 3.0 is also simple. Download an [ISO from archive.org](https://baud.rs/RnlrZ8).
Mount the ISO to a directory in your home directory on the Raspberry Pi, copy the contents and execute in Windows 3.11.
mkdir cdrom
sudo mount -o loop VBPRO30.ISO cdrom
mkdir win3.11/cdrom; cp -R cdrom/* win3.11/cdrom/; chmod -R 755 win3.11/cdrom
I found I needed to restart `dosbox` in order for the new directory to show up. Repeat mounting `/home/pi/win3.11` in `dosbox`.
mount c /home/pi/win3.11
c:
cd Windows
win
Navigate with `File Manager` to `c:` drive, open the `cdrom` folder, go to `DISK1` and execute `SETUP.EXE`
As a helpful note, to release the mouse from `dosbox`, simply press `CTRL+F10`
You might be asking, *what's the point of this exercise?* - It is *because it can be done*.