A few years ago, mobile phones used to be relatively simple devices, that you could use to make calls, send texts, and maybe play the odd game of Snake while commuting. The era of smartphones changed all that, and mobile phones evolved from the primary purpose for which they were originally created, to a much more converged platform, which did stupendously more than just calling and texting.

The average Android mobile phone user today, utilizes his or her device for music, photography, playing high-resolution games, browsing the web, corporate email, navigating maps, and a lot more; and I haven’t even mentioned calling and sending texts yet. Most high end Android smartphones today, sport processing power that would put the average home computer from 10 years ago to shame. And the best part, is that the average user is probably not using all the power under the hood for doing all that he does!!

For a lot of practical purposes, for example, shooting off that email reply that just cannot wait till you get to a computer, or to click that Kodak-moment when you are not carrying your DSLR, the mobile phone is your savior. It is but logical to wonder whether the power-packed devices of the current day would be able to run a full fledged desktop operating system. There may be no functional reason to try and do that, but then, more often than not, we try things with our Android devices, just because “we can“.

And XDA Member mnomaanw has done exactly that with an HTC Evo 3D. Again, while this may not necessarily prove completely functional, it is more of a proof of concept that desktop operating systems can be booted up and run on an ARM powered device. Mnomaanw has found a way to run Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Xp and Linux on the Evo 3D, without really having to go through thousands of lines of code, and trying to figure out what the heck you are doing!! All you need to do is download the required files from his thread, make a few changes to some of the system files, and run a specific apk, and you could be running one of the above OSs on your Evo 3D.

So if you have an Evo 3D that you may not be so much in love with, with all the new phones coming up for release this year, or if you’ve already got yourself that shiny new Rezound, and have an Evo 3D lying unused, you may want to head over to the original development thread & try this out, and show your friends what you can still do, with it.