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First post, by 386_junkie

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Has anyone had experience using DOS emulated on another OS... such as UNIX?

Is is possible to run DOS programs in UNIX through the emulation or would the source code require editing?

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Reply 2 of 5, by digger

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DOSEMU is Linux-specific, though. The best cross-platform solution for this by far remains DOSBox. One limitation you'll run into with DOSBox however, is that it won't run in terminal mode, but create a screen in which a graphics card is completely emulated, even for text mode applications. You can run DOSBox headless, but as far as I know, you cannot (yet) use DOSBox to run a DOS or Win32 application in a Bash console. (Anyone here please correct me if my knowledge is outdated on this point.)

DOSEMU does (optionally) support such a mode, however. Also, it will virtualize a DOS environment if you're running 32-bit Linux. On 64-bit Linux, the CPU will be entirely emulated, so the performance might be lower, especially on a slower machine. But for your use case, that might not matter much.

Reply 3 of 5, by aquishix

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386_junkie wrote:

Has anyone had experience using DOS emulated on another OS... such as UNIX?

Is is possible to run DOS programs in UNIX through the emulation or would the source code require editing?

Thanks

I have successfully played a 2-player game of Star Control ][, full screen, on a 64-bit Xubuntu (Ubuntu Linux + XFCE) system in 2014 or 2015. I used DOSBox to do it and it worked rather well. Even two PSX controllers via a PSX->USB converter worked. =)

Reply 4 of 5, by digger

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aquishix wrote:
386_junkie wrote:

Has anyone had experience using DOS emulated on another OS... such as UNIX?

Is is possible to run DOS programs in UNIX through the emulation or would the source code require editing?

Thanks

I have successfully played a 2-player game of Star Control ][, full screen, on a 64-bit Xubuntu (Ubuntu Linux + XFCE) system in 2014 or 2015. I used DOSBox to do it and it worked rather well. Even two PSX controllers via a PSX->USB converter worked. =)

You can actually play Star Control 2 on Linux natively these days, since the source code for that game was released as open source some years back: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

Reply 5 of 5, by aquishix

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digger wrote:

You can actually play Star Control 2 on Linux natively these days, since the source code for that game was released as open source some years back: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

Indeed; I know allllll about it and was there from the beginning when UQM was in alpha stage. Star Control ][ is my favorite game of all time. I've beaten the original on DOS more times than I could count, once on the 3DO itself, once on an iMac I owned briefly, once on a tablet, and once on a smartphone(I *think*...it's been a few years). I also was one of the people who wrote a paper letter to Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III when the petition first started to request a real sequel to the game instead of that trash that Accolade insulted us with. 😉

I was just answering the OP's question with a relevant example. Playing Star Control ][ (or anything else) in DOSBox is far from ideal.