Floppyy is a browser desktop built on pure nostalgia. Boot up, click around, remember everything — minus the dial-up wait. Mostly.
The web you grew up on.
Floppyy is a retro computer in your browser.
It brings back the feeling of old desktop systems, pixel windows, floppy disks, BIOS boot screens, Winamp vibes, classic games, and the early web — rebuilt as a playful browser experience.
Not an emulator.
Not a productivity tool.
Just a small machine for good old internet memories.
- BIOS POST → boot sequence → desktop
- Draggable desktop icons with grid snapping
- Drag icons onto the Recycle Bin to delete them (with empty/full bin states and Empty Recycle Bin)
- Right-click desktop context menu with Windows 98 style fly-out submenus (Active Desktop, Arrange Icons, Line Up, Refresh, New, Properties, Empty Recycle Bin)
- Window management — open, close, minimize, maximize, drag, resize, z-order
- Start Menu with programs, Settings (Control Panel, Display Settings, Windows Update), and Shut Down
- Taskbar with Start button, quick launch, window buttons, and a live system tray clock (double-click to open Date/Time)
- Keyboard shortcuts — Ctrl+Esc (Start), Alt+F4 (close), Enter (open), Ctrl+Alt+Backspace (restart)
- Notepad — text editor with File/Edit/Search/Format menus, word wrap
- Paint — drawing app with an authentic toolbox (pencil, brush, airbrush, eraser, fill, color picker, text, line, shapes), per-tool size/width options, color palette, and undo
- Calculator — functional calculator
- Internet Explorer — loads real 1998 websites via Wayback Machine
- Netscape Navigator — retro alternative browser
- MS-DOS Prompt — command-line interface with working commands
- Outlook Express — three-pane email client (Inbox / Outbox / Sent / Deleted), Compose that sends to the Outbox and "delivers" a copy to the Inbox with a You've got mail chime, plus Reply and Delete
- Guest Book (#floppyy) — ICQ/mIRC-style chat guestbook where visitors sign in real time with retro avatars, ICQ-style statuses, emoticons, safe BBCode formatting (
[b],[i],[url]), per-IP rate limiting, honeypot and stop-word spam filtering; new signings also arrive as mail in Outlook Express - Norton Commander — dual-pane file manager
- Windows Media Player — video playback
- Winamp — music player (frameless, authentic skin)
- My Computer / My Documents / Local Disk — file system browsing
- Projects — portfolio browser with project details
- Control Panel & Display Properties — system configuration, plus switchable wallpapers (the classic Windows 98 set: Clouds, Space, Underwater, Baseball, and more) and screensaver selection
- Date/Time Properties — live clock with analog face, calendar, and time zone (double-click the taskbar clock)
- Disk Defragmenter — animated defrag utility
- Recycle Bin — holds deleted desktop icons, restore or empty
- Run dialog — authentic fixed-size dialog with a dropdown listing recent history and every available command
- Share dialog, and About / Credits — share Floppyy and view project credits
- Help — Floppyy Help (getting started, platform-aware keyboard shortcuts, and the full list of secrets)
- Screensavers — Pipes, Starfield, Maze, Mystify, Flying Windows
- Snake, Tetris, Breakout, Pixel Puzzle, Typing Tutor, and Checkers — lightweight Win98-style browser games with local high scores where it makes sense
- DOOM, Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Dune II, and WarCraft: Orcs & Humans — MS-DOS classics running in-browser via js-dos (DOSBox). Grouped in the desktop Games folder and under Start → Games.
- Minesweeper — classic mine-clearing puzzle
- Solitaire — card game (drag or click-to-move)
Desktop only: the DOS games (DOOM, Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Dune II, WarCraft) need a physical keyboard and mouse, so they only run on a desktop or laptop. On phones and tablets they show a "Desktop only" message instead. Click inside a game to capture the mouse/keyboard.
- Sound effects via Web Audio API with oscillator fallback
- Offline browsers automatically offer Dial-Up Networking after a short delay
- Screensaver activation after idle timeout
- Service worker for offline support
- Safe Mode boot option
- Shut Down with "It's now safe to turn off your computer" screen
- Share dialog for social sharing
- Window session persistence — open windows and their positions/sizes are restored on reload (one-shot dialogs excluded)
- Code-split windows — heavy apps (DOS games, Paint, Internet Explorer, Netscape, Media Player, Norton Commander) are lazy-loaded on demand to keep the first paint fast
Floppyy occasionally fights back. A few things to try — the full list lives in Start → Help → Tips & Secrets:
- Open My Computer four times in a row to trigger a cascade of errors → blue screen → reboot
- Press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace (⌃ + ⌥ + ⌫ on Mac) for an on-demand crash & restart
- Type
format c:,del *.*, ordeltreeinto the Run dialog... and say goodbye - Internet Explorer and Netscape occasionally throw a fatal error mid-browse (true to the era)
- A few minutes into a session, McAfee "finds a virus" — once per machine, and it's bluffing
- Lose at Minesweeper and the computer may rub it in
- Secret Run words:
llama,nostalgia,clouds,stars,floppyy - Drag My Computer onto the Recycle Bin — Floppyy will refuse
- Next.js 16.3 — App Router, Turbopack
- React 19.2 — concurrent features
- TypeScript 6.0 — strict type safety
- Tailwind CSS 4.3 — utility-first styling + custom Win98 CSS
- ESLint 10 — linting with the Next.js flat-config compatibility layer
- Web Audio API — sound effects
- Canvas API — Paint app
- js-dos (DOSBox) — in-browser MS-DOS games (DOOM, Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Dune II, WarCraft), run in an isolated iframe
- HTML5 Video — Media Player
- Service Worker — offline caching
- Route Handlers + Postgres + Redis — Guest Book storage, moderation, and rate limiting
Requires Node.js 20.9.0 or later.
# Install dependencies
npm install
# Development server
npm run dev
# Production build
npm run build
npm start
# Lint / React Compiler checks
npm run lint
# Dependency security audit
npm auditOpen http://localhost:3000 in your browser.
MIT
Visit www.floppyy.com