DOSEMU Running on C:\ |
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| Developer(s) | DOSEMU Team |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 1.4.0 / May 5, 2007 |
| Operating system | Linux |
| Type | Compatibility layer |
| License | GPL |
| Website | www.dosemu.org |
DOSEMU, alternatively rendered dosemu, is a compatibility layer software package that enables MS-DOS systems, DOS clones such as FreeDOS, and DOS software to run under Linux on x86-based PCs (IBM PC compatible computers).
It uses a combination of hardware virtualization features and strategic emulation. It is thus able to achieve nearly native speed for 8086-compatible DOS operating systems and applications on x86 compatible processors, and for 32-bit DPMI applications on x86 compatible processors as well as on x86-64 processors (Virtual 8086 mode is not available in x86-64 long mode, so DOSEMU includes an 8086 processor emulator for use with 16-bit applications.).
Currently it is only available for x86 Linux systems.
DOSEMU is an option for people who need or want to continue to use legacy DOS software, in some cases virtualisation is good enough to drive external hardware such as EPROM programmers connected to the parallel port. To quote the manual, "dosemu" is a user-level program which uses certain special features of the Linux kernel and the 80386 processor to run MS-DOS, FreeDOS or DR-DOS in what people in the biz call a `DOS box.' The DOS box, a combination of hardware and software trickery, has these capabilities: