I rebuilt my Windows 98 Defrag Simulator so the clusters shuffle the messy way the real one actually did
A couple of years ago I made defrag98.com, a browser version of the Win98 disk defragmenter, purely to recreate that hypnotic feeling of watching the blocks rearrange. It did better than I ever expected, but a few things always bugged me about it, so I rebuilt the whole thing.
The big one: the original didn't march through clusters in order. It read, wrote, and shuffled them around in this messy, almost-thinking way. My first version was too tidy. The new sim actually models that, so the blocks jump around before settling, like you remember.
I also brought back the legend dialog explaining each block color, switched the grid to a white background (mine was wrongly black), made the progress bar fill block by block with the "% Complete" caption, and added the real "Disk Defragmenter" completion box with the chime. It runs fully offline now too.
There's also a hidden easter egg in there for anyone who grew up on this OS. I won't say what it is.
It's free, no ads, no tracking. Would love to hear from people who remember the original whether it feels right: defrag98.com
Full write-up if you're curious about the rebuild: morello.dev/blog/defrag98-rebuild