It's nothing new that Minecraft lets players do extremely strange things. I still remember projects like the mobile phone and the one-kilobyte hard drive, but a mod called VM Computers takes it to another level. With its help, it's now possible to link VirtualBox resources to a computer inside the game and run a full Windows XP. Reddit user "uDrunkMate" did exactly that, and as could not be otherwise… he loaded a copy of Doom.
Doom can run anywhere
Thermostats, ATMs, printers, calculators. If it has a processor, video output, a bit of RAM, and a pinch of storage, it can probably run Doom. But those components don't need to be physical. If it's possible to emulate them somewhere, the 1993 classic should work without major issues. So… what about Minecraft?
VM Computers: a full PC inside Minecraft
No, it's not madness, it's a mod! If there are people out there creating entire libraries within the game, reproducing a computer doesn't sound so far-fetched. The heavy lifting is done by VM Computers, an experimental project that appeared on the CurseForge portal at the end of June, and that uses a local copy of VirtualBox to create a functional computer inside Minecraft.
The mod's page doesn't mention limitations when it comes to running operating systems, but one of the images shows that it can load ISO images of Windows 98 and Windows XP. The latter was chosen by Reddit user "uDrunkMate". He performed a complete installation of Windows XP Home Edition, and even tried Windows Movie Maker… and in the end he installed Doom.
Apart from the lack of sound and the occasional lost frame, the animation suggests there are no major speed issues. Now, this opens a wide range of possibilities. Part of the Web wants to know if that system can run Crysis (I guess we'll have to wait a couple of years for that), but there's another fundamental question: Can we play Minecraft… inside Minecraft? Well…
https://www.youtube.com/embed/wxvr5PZ0Zgo(Editor's note: Several portals indicated that the operating system was Windows 95, but that information is incorrect. The system is XP.)
Source: Reddit
