DOSBox isn't a DOS emulator.

But if you are asking about emulation\virtualization similar to DOSBox then it depends on what you want to do.

For just gaming then NTVDM\PCem\VPC\Dosemu. ReactOS is working on their own NTVDM.

None of the above are as compatible for host OS support and DOS programs that can be run as DOSBox is nor have as many patches or company\community support.

DosFreak wrote:

DOSBox isn't a DOS emulator. […]
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DOSBox isn't a DOS emulator.

But if you are asking about emulatation\virtualization similar to DOSBox then it depends on what you want to do.

For just gaming then NTVDM\PCem\VPC\Dosemu. ReactOS is working on their own NTVDM.

None of the above are as compatible in both host and guest as DOSBox nor have as many patches or company\community support.

hmm, i think its on running old windows systems on it and games.

DosFreak wrote:

DOSBox isn't a DOS emulator. […]
Show full quote

DOSBox isn't a DOS emulator.

But if you are asking about emulatation\virtualization similar to DOSBox then it depends on what you want to do.

For just gaming then NTVDM\PCem\VPC\Dosemu. ReactOS is working on their own NTVDM.

None of the above are as compatible in both host and guest as DOSBox nor have as many patches or company\community support.

What differentiates DosBox from a "true" emulator?

DOSBox doesn't require actual BIOSes and doesn't use cycle accurate CPU clock timings. It doesn't even require a real hard drive image with DOS installed

leileilol wrote:

DOSBox doesn't require actual BIOSes and doesn't use cycle accurate CPU clock timings. It doesn't even require a real hard drive image with DOS installed

ZSNES isn't cycle accurate, and it's still considered an SNES emulator, albeit a rather poor one. 🤣

DOSBox emulates parts of a PC....not DOS.

Hmm, one could argue that it does emulate Dos as well, since you don't need to install Dos before using it, which real hardware and (most/all?) other PC emulators require.

Semantics I guess.

I don't think you can consider DOSBox a OS (or rather the DOS functionality in DOSBox). It provides a CLI and enough of the functionality to make games work but on the other hand it does meet the basic requirements.

The main thing to understand though is the goal of DOSBox is not to emulate DOS but to get DOS games working so it's should be classified as a PC emulator not a "DOS" emulator.

Funny, back in the day we would have classified it as a DOS emulator because it simulates having a DOS installation. Similar to dosemu on Linux. In fact, I would have sworn both people like Qbix and moderators like DosFreak calling it a DOS emulator. I guess times change?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox/

"An Open Source DOS emulator to run old DOS games"

heh

I guess "DOSBox is not an emulator" is a bit like "WINE is not an emulator".

Wine offers enough of the public Windows API to allow SOME Windows programs to be used.
DOSBox offers enough of the DOS / hardware emulation API to allow SOME games to run.

There are others, while DOSBox targets games, there are others which target serious apps...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdos/
http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/vdoswp.html - Intended to run Wordperfect for DOS
Finally..
http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/virtualpc.html
Real DOS in a virtual PC

Nah, it's not like WINE, no one disputes that it is an emulator. We just split hairs over what kind of emulator;)

Matth79 wrote:

There are others, while DOSBox targets games, there are others which target serious apps... http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdos […]
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There are others, while DOSBox targets games, there are others which target serious apps...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdos/
http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/vdoswp.html - Intended to run Wordperfect for DOS
Finally..
http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/virtualpc.html
Real DOS in a virtual PC

To the best of my knowledge vDOS is a fork of DOSBox that has decided to take on the responsibility of supporting business apps. Not sure what the DOSBox crew thinks of it, but it's not a license violation at least. 😉

I've always considered DOSBox a "Simulator" instead of an "Emulator". Mainly because they worry less about accuracy, and concentrate on functionality.

Are you sure about that? In other ways DOSBox is more of an emulator than something like VMware, which merely simulates enough of a video card's high-level functions to get the guest OS (and the minimal "stub" kind of video driver) installed. DOSBox accurately emulates a handful of individual SVGA chips, as games access them directly.

That's partly just it... DOSBox only "emulates" the bare minimum to get games to work.

There is no BIOS, it simulates a BIOS for BIOS calls, but the actual data area of the BIOS is practically empty. This can be seen quite clearly in Ultima 7. There is a screen during the intro that is supposed to be video snow effect (like tuning to an empty channel on an old TV set.) The game does it by using the BIOS area (read only,) to generate a semi-random (but steady) binary sequence. In DOSBox (without a handy patch someone wrote,) you get a Black screen with a few white specs throughout.

When we get to the other features, including the video features, it simulates the presence of the HW. Which is why you don't have to hunt down and download the ROM files for the cards like you do with true emulators (such as PCem.) They know how the card responds to different calls, and just use those responses. If you trace backwards the functionality with previous DOSBox versions, you can see how this has been tweaked, fixed, improved, etc... over time.

In the end, there is quite a bit of functionality that is never realized (or is lost,) compared to a real PC. Such things as true system speeds (it's only approximated,) some strange/fancy install procedures, and other such. About the only thing they worry about is, "will the game play?" If a game doesn't play, they look into why. If a game doesn't install correctly, they don't worry as much about it. On several occasions, I've had to install the game on a real PC, then pack up the directory and move it to my DOSBox "C" drive.

They themselves have referred to it as a "DOS" emulator for games. If it is an emulator, it emulates an OS, and not a machine. To me, that is a defining difference between emulation and simulation. It simulates an older machine through OS emulation. It makes it easier to use, in a way, but reduces complete compatibility.

I'd think 'simulator' would apply to software that does analog circuitry...

I was tired, sorry.... A better distinction would be.... A simulator tries to make thing "similar" without worrying about 100% accuracy, while an emulator concentrates on that accuracy.

The trouble here is that you're getting in to "No true Scotsman" territory.

One could argue that PCem only simulates a PC, because it "only" executes the machine code on a software core, and doesn't a actually implement the individual transistor gates that make up a CPU.

...or that a program that does do the latter "only" simulates a CPU die because it doesn't implement the particle physics that make the transistors work.

(And before you say that level of accuracy isn't necessary: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accurac … -snes-emulator/ esp. the last page.)

Of course, this is silly. I think in computing terms, an "emulation" is an environment for running software on a system that the software wasn't designed for. And "simulation" more broadly means a software facsimile of a thing or activity.

Which is to say, all emulators are simulators, but not all simulators are emulators. (Flight, train, goat, etc)