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Running old operating systems using 86Box

86box.net Emulator of retro x86-based machines
Emulator of retro x86-based machines

I've seen a couple conversations about older or more esoteric operating systems, so I thought I'd make a post about 86Box and why I like the project.

86Box (a fork of PCem) is a low-level emulator for a wide variety of hardware from old PCs. Unlike most modern emulators which prioritize speed, it prioritizes accuracy of hardware emulation. This means it has all the quirks and features (and bios screens) you'd expect in old hardware.

It can emulate a variety of systems from the first IBM PC up to the Pentium era. It has a surprisingly large variety of motherboards, storage controllers, disk drive models, network cards, graphics cards, etc.

To test it out, I set up something close to my first PC:

  • 486 DX2 66
  • ASUS PVI-486SP3C Motherboard
  • S3 Trio64V+
  • 234MB 4500RPM HDD
  • Novell NE2000 ISA network card

I set it up with Dos 6.22, Windows 3.1, network drivers, mTCP, winpacket, trumpet winsock, and I'm on the internet in both dos and windows.

While something very similar could be accomplished with dosbox, virtualbox or qemu, I enjoyed the experience of using the 'actual' hardware. I also imagine it will support old quirky software more reliably than the alternatives.

I think a Windows 9x system with a 3dfx Voodoo card will be my next build.

So, Anyone else used 86Box or a similar emulator? What for? How did it go?

2
2 comments

  • I've been playing with 86Box lately to setup Windows 95 to play some old games.

    Win95 has a bug where it doesn't run on fast CPUs, so using one of the original CD images in a VM like KVM is not possible.

    (I later found https://github.com/JHRobotics/patcher9x which you can use to patch the install images)

    I tried Bochs but it was impossible to use, it drops to a text debugger and wants you to connect over VNC which isn't what I wanted anyway. PCem lost a lot of momentum after going unmaintained, and there is no Linux binary.

    86Box has both AppImage and Flatpak, and comes with a nice configuration GUI. It's easy to use and works well for what I want to do.

    I like how it seems to properly emulate the BIOS and specific devices, so you can use the actual original drivers too.

    • Thanks for the link to the patcher. That could come in useful if I'm looking for a higher performance Win9x VM.