The Apple Watch is a wearable computer. The sort of thing that was fodder for science fiction novels a few decades back.
A new video by Nick Lee, a software developer, demonstrates the development of computers over the past two decades by being able to run the Macintosh OS, System 7.5.5 on the Apple Watch.
Lee was able to hack an Apple Watch, powered by the watchOS 2, and replaced the operating system with a port of the Macintosh OS 7.5.5 using the Mini vMac Macintosh emulator. The emulator is designed to allow modern gadgets to run applications that were designed to be used on old Macintosh computers.
The Macintosh OS 7.5.5 was released almost 20 years ago in 1996. Back then, the operating system required a full PowerPC Mac, which were very heavy and clunky even in their smallest forms. Those Mac computers were a far cry from the portable devices that the current generation of users are enjoying.
Today, the Macintosh OS 7.5.5 is now able to run on a computer worn on a user's wrist, showing just how far computer technology has gone in the past 20 years.
The Apple Watch is a popular piece of technology, to say the least, with sales of the wearable device estimated by Slice Intelligence to already have reached 2.79 million units since its launch in April until the middle of June.
Slice also determined that about 17 percent of buyers of the Apple Watch made extra purchases on a spare wristband, further increasing Apple's revenues from the product.
The popularity of the Apple Watch and the revenues obtained by Apple from the wearable device could support rumors that Apple is already working on the second version of the Apple Watch, despite releasing the device just a few months ago.
According to multiple sources, the second Apple Watch will feature several improvements such as the addition of a FaceTime camera to be located in the top bezel of the device, along with an increased independence from the iPhone.
The Apple Watch's functions are severely limited when not paired with the iPhone. To increase the device's independence, Apple will likely pack a more advanced chipset into the Apple Watch.
