Emulate Android 1.6 Donut with ARM ABI

Issue

Is it possible somehow - anyhow, even in another virtual machine - to emulate an ARM-based Android device running Android 1.6 Donut OS?

Android Studio does offer creating a hardware device with this version of Android, but nothing happens when I'm trying to start the emulator. I cannot start neither 1.6 Donut nor 2.3 Gingerbread. I can run 7.0 Nougat, however.

Gingerbread and Donut fail silently, the console that runs Android Studio does not output anything.

Background

I'm doing experiments on how these old devices could be reused and I have discovered that I can compile at least some rudimentary C++ using NDK (along with older versions of Java, but right now I'm interested in running native code).

The ancient old Android NDK that supports API Level 4 can only compile binary for ARM processors, but right now I'm only able to run Android 1.6 x86 in VirtualBox, which, of course, won't run that code.

As an alternative I would be happy with an NDK that compiles for the x86 port of Android.

I have successfully compiled some rudimentary binaries for recent versions of Android using NDK, now I wish I could do the same for older versions without a physical hardware, as my oldest device runs 2.3 Gingerbread. At the time I got that phone, it used to run version 1.6, but I have upgraded it long since and there is no way to go back.

I'm targeting specifically those devices that nobody uses anymore, but are not thrown into the garbage yet. (even if it remains only a hobby project, thereof)

Thank you for your hints in advance!

Solution

Micheal guided me to the right direction, thank you!

Solution

Silly enough, I did not found on my own where can I download an older release of the sdk.

I also forgot that tools/android is the executable for the graphical AVD manager (meanwhile it also features a very friendly text interface).

I could run Android, and also a hello world compiled with the old NDK.

I'm now very excited to see what is possible with these old Droids using C++! :)

Answered By - Kuklin István