Summary
Windows 95 runs a smart toaster via a Raspberry Pi inside a 3D-printed beige shell – delightfully retro.
Toaster’s original hardware couldn’t run Win95; a Pico intercepts inputs and a Pi handles the OS-toaster bridge.
Toast.exe on the Win95 desktop lets you manually control heating, cycles, and tray – impractical but wickedly cool.
Sometimes, someone will create something that gives us a peek into an alternate reality. For example, what if smart devices took off in the mid-90s and gave us wonders like a smart toaster that ran off Windows 95? Yes, they’re impractical, and yes, they’re not solving any actual problems; however, they are really cool, which is always a win in my book.
Such is the case of the excellently-named YouTuber ‘Throaty Mumbo,’ who wanted to get Windows 95 running off a modern-day smart toaster. And while they couldn’t manage to get Windows 95 running off the original hardware, I think their solution is both eloquent and really, really fun.
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Running a smart toaster off Windows 95 is an amazing feat
And yes, there’s a “Toast.exe” application
As spotted by Hackaday, Throaty Mumbo decided that they were tired of smart toasters being all modern and sensibly-designed. As such, they got their mitts on a Revolution smart toaster and got to gutting the device to see how it ticks. Unfortunately, it turns out that the hardware the toaster used was not suitable for running Windows 95, so Throaty Mumbo couldn’t run it on the toaster. However, they could set up a middleman to handle both the OS and the toaster functionality.
So, Throaty Mumbo did the insane. They got a Raspberry Pi Pico and reverse-engineered the toaster so that the Pi handled all the signals instead of the main hardware. Now that he had captured the inputs, he could do whatever he liked with the Pi and toaster combo. Eventually, Throaty Mumbo would then get Windows 95 installed on the Pi, which he housed in a 3D-printed beige shell for the authentic 90s experience.
Because they had managed to crack the toaster’s inputs, Throaty Mumbo managed to whip up an executable called Toast.exe. If you want some fresh toast in the morning, you just use the screen to find the Toast.exe executable on the desktop, double-click it, and hit “Start Toast.” It’s worth noting that each and every step of the toasting process is represented by an individual button, so you’ll need to manually control the heating, the cycles, and the tray movement with manual button-presses. And that’s really, really cool, if impractical.
If you love the 90s vibes but you’re not a fan of having to control your toaster like you’re in a nuclear reactor, you can instead put your SBC to good use by emulating these consoles perfectly.