Windows 95 Runs on a PlayStation 2 — But This Modified Console Struggles with Doom

Okay, so here’s the deal. I stumbled onto this YouTube rabbit hole thanks to Jace from MetraByte, who’s into what they call “silly tech.” And, yeah, installing Windows 95 and Doom on a PlayStation 2? That qualifies as wonderfully nutty. Like, why wouldn’t you want to mix mid-’90s vibes with early 2000s gaming?

Alright, quick history refresher — Windows 95 came out in, well, ’95, and the PS2 entered our lives in 2000. Now you’d think the PS2 would handle these tasks like a breeze. Nope. Because we’re talking hacking a PS2 to mimic an x86 computer with all its quirks. I once tried running before coffee; kinda the same energy.

Jace trimmed what felt like a lifetime of tinkering into a video less than half an hour long — still a long invite to chaos but bear with me. They used this modded PS2 with a wild rig of a controller hooked up to a QWERTY keyboard. Old-school tech magic at its finest: USB stick, hard drive, the whole shebang.

They had this PlayStation .ELF file, whatever that means (like, my brain just went ‘foo fighters’ there), alongside DOSBox and Bochs emulators. IYKYK, DOSBox wasn’t quite the charmer for booting Windows 95. Jace had to switch to Bochs, which is supposed to be more accurate for simulation — slower but better for the shenanigans.

Anyway — oh wait, no seriously back to the saga. Picture Jace, fighting through a cosmic storm of boot errors, read/write warnings, the whole apocalypse. After maybe 47 tries (exaggeration? who knows), they finally got the Windows 95 setup screen up! Cue the fireworks… or exhausted sigh, really.

The video almost makes you feel the slow “why am I doing this?” vibe. Tech hurdles are real; I can already hear the Windows ding, and it’s not nostalgic right now. PS2’s I/O speed wasn’t helping, but hey, Jace rocked on.

The punchline? It took them about 14 hours — you know, two whole workdays — to get the install done. They got to the desktop and managed to open Paint, but Doom… well, Doom stayed a dream. That’s like unraveling a sweater only to find a sock inside. But, wow, what a ride!

Catch the rest of the antics on Google News if you’re up for a deep dive into tech-world craziness. Just, mind the open tabs.