Touch Screens

Sigord

Junior Member
Aug 8, 2015
29
0
Mainly out of curiosity someone suggested the Android OS would still work OK with a mouse on say a Laptop that used and ordinary screen instead of a touch screen. But here is some doubt how it would cope with pinch, expand and the opening wipe needed.
 

leeshor

Senior Member
Dec 27, 2011
6,330
1,037
No touch screen is no touch, pinch swipe, etc.. So you are correct. The swipe to start or open Android is not required when using an emulator.
 

Sigord

Junior Member
Aug 8, 2015
29
0
Thanks. My next question is I have an old Dell laptop with WiFi is it worth trying to install Android using one of the CDs on EBay as it has a CD/DVD drive. If all fails I imagine I could install a Windows again.
 

leeshor

Senior Member
Dec 27, 2011
6,330
1,037
I'm almost certain there is no way that would work. The Android you saw was likely intended for a totally diferemt type of processor.
 

Sigord

Junior Member
Aug 8, 2015
29
0
My £2.75 CD has arrived from EBay with an Android OS that appears to work on almost any Desktop PC or Laptop even if like mine it does not use a touch screen. I only tested it on a Desktop PC with 1 Gb of RAM using the first option to run it temporary in RAM, rather than option 4 installing it on the drive allowing it to reformat and erase all existing Windows and other files. It appears to work perfectly. So for or those who do not want to pay around £100 for Windows 10 to use an old PC or laptop, with your experience of Android it is well worth considering. Beware it does not work on an old Laptop with only some 200 Mb of RAM. But it presumably cannot do any harm to any PC etc. when just testing running temporary in RAM. Also if a PC etc does not recognise the CD when it starts up instead of say Windows, then your CMOS Boot up must be set to look for a CD before the Hard Drive.

It takes about 2 minutes to install in RAM, then looks for any WiFi, and when I used Skip it recognised my BT Fibre Broadband. Though it asks for your ID and such as Google ID it does not store it unless presumably you are installing it on the Hard Drive. I find Press the Start button quickly to enter Stand by, or press for a few seconds until it turns off the power. This is presumably because it mentions it is also for a Tablet thus waiting for the Off Button to be pressed. The only Icons to show at first are the usual list of all existing Apps, the usual 3 to revert back, home page, or disable existing Apps to save power. So I was able to go online only straightaway.
 
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Sigord

Junior Member
Aug 8, 2015
29
0
Well it seems to back up the claims of the supplier it should work on any PC or Laptop or Tablet, the latter if you can gain access to the system. As it seems the moderators of this forum do not like URLs posted, so run a search on EBay for Android OS CD and it should show the one for £2.75 first. It depicts a glary coloured CD marked Android 4.4 x86 Kitcat Linux. No doubt once you have been online for awhile the OS will be updated as with my Nexus tablet. I of course did not want to lose all the files on a desktop PC with 1 GB of RAM. So I used the safe first default option of testing it in RAM. I also used free software to create an ISO of the CD and then free Rufus to create and test a bootable Flash Drive for use where say a Laptop has no CD Drive.

I used the File manger provided to run MP3s and Videos from a Flash drive. It did not recognise files on the hard drive presumably because I did not install it on the Drive. It failed to show photos, perhaps needing a Touch Screen, but there must be many other Photo Viewers available to try. Being designed for a Touch Screen I had few problems using the mouse on a non touch screen, and just dragged the display up or down. Since my PC has no WiFi card I clicked the Skip and went online using my BT Hub. It even has some strange emergency phone dialler on the home page.
 
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