So you’ve decided to unlock your Surface or other Windows RT tablet  by using a jailbreak solution? You might be wondering though, what can I do with it at this stage? Right now there isn’t much from the homebrewing scene, as it is just getting started. As time progresses, there will likely be quite a few indie desktop apps and ports. In the meantime? You could do something different just for the sake of doing it, like what Steve Troughton-Smith achieved with his Surface.
Programmer Steve Troughton-Smith used his Twitter account to show off the Rhapsody OS running through virtualization software via his Microsoft Surface RT tablet. For those that don’t know, Apple’s Rhapsody OS was an early version of what would later on become Mac OS X. That said, since this is running in emulation on an ARM processor on top of RT– don’t expect huge speed or productivity power here. This is equally true considering Rhapsody is long-dead.
Steve said he chose Rhapsody because it was more exciting than other options like Windows 95. I disagree, I’d love to see someone get Windows 95 or Windows 98 running on the Surface. Sure, the emulation of x86 on an ARM device would probably make most of the desktop applications less than awesome– but it would still be cool to see.
I’d also love to see someone run actual ARM-optimized operating systems inside of Windows RT. Imagine having a virtualized instance of Android– and all of its apps– running on an RT tablet. That said, the performance probably wouldn’t be all that great.
The point is that the Surface RT and other Windows RT devices are certainly capable of much more than what we’ve seen from them so far. If enough hackers and modders throw their support towards it, expect some pretty unique applications and programs to hit Windows RT desktop in the next few months.
Have you attempted to unlock a Windows RT tablet yet, or will you keep your RT device as-is?
