I Wanted Windows 95 in My Terminal. It Got a Little Out of Hand.

Описание и применение

Проект показывает, как терминал может воспроизводить интерфейс Windows 95 с полноценными приложениями, используя графику Kitty/Sixel, рантайм Wippy и платформу KickSide.

Задача

Recreating a nostalgic Windows 95 desktop experience inside a terminal while leveraging modern terminal graphics and an AI‑driven runtime.

Результат

The project demonstrates that a terminal can host a Windows 95‑style desktop with functional applications, leveraging AI‑era runtimes and modern terminal graphics.

Рабочий процесс

• 1. Investigated terminal graphics protocols (Kitty, Sixel).
• 2. Built a basic desktop with background, taskbar, Start button, clock using text and Kitty graphics.
• 3. Added window movement and window system.
• 4. Integrated Wippy runtime for application isolation and messaging.
• 5. Leveraged KickSide for user management, authentication, registry, and MCP.
• 6. Created desktop applications mapping to KickSide modules (Task Manager, Add/Remove Programs, Registry Editor, Users, Services).
• 7. Developed aICQ messenger to enable user and AI agent communication.
• 8. Implemented a Windows‑style login screen connected to KickSide authentication.

Доказательства

Turns out modern terminals can do quite a bit more than just display text.

I spent some time figuring out what was supported, how input and rendering worked and what we could realistically build on top of it.

With just 1 GB of RAM, that's theoretically around 80,000 processes worth of baseline overhead.

Managing running processes? Task Manager.

I added a login screen to the desktop, connected it to KickSide's user management and suddenly the desktop had actual user accounts.