I dug up my old cd based Oxford English Dictionary. It was easy enough to get it goin from an image using wine on ubuntu. I tried it in dosbox and it said it needed windows 3.1. I was kinda surprised, I thought it might go on dos--it has very simple interface (which I really like) and seems pretty light. Any suggestions (aside from putting it on my server and using it remotely)? Has any one got win3.1 running on pdax? I can't imagine a lot of reasons to try...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8QgZ4QiuFk

I would think DosBox would work better than Bochs. Win95 on Bochs took ~10 minutes to boot IIRC.

And no, the video wasn't really necessary, just thought it might give a good gauge of performance.

I got Windows 3.1 working on DosBox a while ago as well (there is a long thread about DosBox somewhere that basically details the process), but you absolutely need an external USB mouse in order to use it (unless you only want to use the keyboard). The stylus doesn't work at all (re: at all) in Windows 3.1 on DosBox. Also, there are some keymapping issues (which vary in degree depending on whose dosbox ipk you use). It's also pretty slow for everyday use. It's good for impressing your friends (if they're as geeky as you, that is), but not much else.

I could probably get by on the OED with a keyboard.... thanks for the info. I may yet do it
Edit--keyboard won't do it. I do have a tiny mouse, though. It works beautifully over secureshell, I suppose the first step is to put it on an externally accessible server

Also, be sure to turn off mouse acceleration in windows.

Off on a slight tangent - I've got the OTD (Oxford Talking Dictionary) running off an iso image under wine on practically all my computers. I've always wondered how cool it would be if someone (cleverer than me) managed to convert the speech data into something suitable for Stardict - I've got a speech pack for Stardict but it only covers common words.