Linux gains more critical Windows apps: 3D Movie Maker and Space Cadet Pinball

OSes

Further demonstrating its role as industry default OS the versatility of modern porting tools

Thanks in part to a Register reader and skilled programmer-archeologist, we bring you news of yet more vital enterprise Windows tools that have been brought to Linux.

All right, we know, nobody was holding back their Linux deployment until Microsoft 3D Movie Maker was made available, but it's here now. It's not the only familiar mid-1990s Windows app with a fresh new version either. Around the same age is the Space Cadet Pinball game, first released as part of the Microsoft Plus Pack for Windows 95, 31 years ago.

The Reg FOSS desk found itself somewhat moved by Lily Siwik's recent blog post about "Childhood Computing," in which she waxes nostalgic. The opening probably resonates with many Register readers:

Fair enough. We can relate. This vulture was about 13 when he got his first one. It was the opening of the next paragraph that gave us pause:

Look, we are all too well aware, it just stings a little, OK? She continues a little later:

In our humble opinion, starting out on Windows XP really is not a gentle, welcoming introduction to the wonders of computers – it's what drove us to run Linux on the desktop full time, as well as spending considerable time and money upgrading an elderly PowerMac we'd been given so that it could run the new Apple Mac OS X, thanks to Ryan Rempel's wonderful XPostFacto.

But yes, if Windows XP was what your first-ever computer ran, then we can see why you might be nostalgic for it. A few years ago, we wrote "Want to live dangerously? Try running Windows XP in 2023," and quite a few people seemed to enjoy it.

You can install 64-bit Windows XP on a 21st century dual-core 64-bit laptop and get all its hardware working. It takes a while to do it, but it goes like a rocket if you do. If you take it for a spin on the internet, it will probably get infected with some vintage malware just as fast.

You are not going to get that far with Windows 95, though. If you have more than 480 MB of RAM, it won't even start, and the great Raymond Chen explained why in 2003.

Space Cadet Pinball

A few years ago, The Register reported on how he explained the untimely demise of 3D Pinball for Windows. This was a follow-up to Chen's 2012 post "Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?"

But never fear: the good news is it's back. Last week, Oracle Linux developer Stephen Brennan blogged about how to get Space Cadet Pinball on Linux.

Space Cadet was just one table from a collection in the game Full Tilt! Pinball and the Windows original of that can be found on GitHub. Apparently, it's possible to get it running in some way on Windows 10, although we confess we have not tried.

The Space Cadet table was included in several versions of Windows, and so that's the one many people remember best. The code for that has been decompiled, rebuilt, and ported to some 14 different platforms, and thanks to Muzychenko Andrey, you can find it on GitHub too: SpaceCadetPinball. Although it's not in the list there, one of these platforms is Linux, and as a result, Muzychenko's version is on Flathub.

3D Movie Maker

We suspect that Full Tilt! Pinball was never officially open sourced, but as it is 31 years old, current Maxis owner Electronic Arts doesn't really care.

Microsoft 3D Movie Maker, though, is a different matter. As The Reg reported in 2022, Microsoft released it as open source, and the source code is still right there. Microsoft may not have modified it in all that time, but that doesn't mean it's untouched.

Reg reader Mark Cave-Ayland wrote to let us know:

What's more, last month, Mark wrote up their efforts and described much of what he and Ben had to do in order to get it working, over a lavishly detailed two-part blog post: "Porting 3D Movie Maker to Linux - part 1" in early April and 11 days later, "Porting 3D Movie Maker to Linux - part 2."

It's not only a native port, they also had to do more work to make it 64-bit clean, add native file load and save dialog boxes, MIDI background music via FluidSynth, and a video player powered by GStreamer – among other things. Currently, they're looking at making a Raspberry Pi version as well. ®