I don't have such a system, but I suggest using 86Box or PCEM for testing. In layman's terms, these are much more sophisticated emulators than Dosbox, allowing you to emulate an exact CPU model, motherboard and graphics card to see how your program would behave on real hardware.

The closest I have is an Olivetti M28, 286 @ 8mhz with EGA. Its a bit quicker than an 8088, but, can give it a go.

I think I should have working hardware that meets these specs. However, I have not actually tested any of the EGA cards I have so no idea if they actually work. Then comes the fact that I am not sure if I have a working EGA monitor.

I have commodore pc10-III with genoa superega card on my bench just now.
It's got nec V20 installed and can run at 4.77/~8/~9 Mhz speeds... don't remember exact speeds.
Btw 8088 and ega isn't common setup, 8088 is usually paired with cga/plantronics graphics.
I will try your software during weekend... if I remember 🙃

Edit:
Game doesn't start with my setup, gives just random lines to screen, doesn't hang escape exits program still.

I have an IBM 5150 with a 4.77Mhz 8088, but it has 7Mhz 286 upgrade card in it too. It is also running an EGA card. Sadly, the last time I powered it on the hard drive wasn't working (again). If I am able to get that working I will test your game with and without the 286 enabled.

What EGA resolution does the game use? EGA 640x350 will require a monitor that is almost impossible to find, where as the lower res EGA modes will work on CGA monitors as well.

Thanks everyone who offered to help 😀 It turns out that the demo used an EGA "feature" that's only available on VGA cards when they run in EGA mode, so that wouldn't have worked. I'm currently building a workaround.

Seems like a cool idea for a project. I assume it must be wireframe scenery like Battlezone or Starglider?

I have an 8088 laptop. It has Trident VGA Graphics. I will wait until you update to a true EGA mode rather than the one that only works on VGA cards.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-02-19, 12:04:

Seems like a cool idea for a project. I assume it must be wireframe scenery like Battlezone or Starglider?

Thank you for offering to help! It's a bit more ambitious than wireframes, I hope!
If anyone could run this on real hardware (target platform is 8088 @ 8MHz with an EGA, but anything retro will do) and report back (with some screenshots, maybe? 😀 ) that'd be fantastic.

middlenibble wrote on 2026-02-25, 08:54:

Thank you for offering to help! It's a bit more ambitious than wireframes, I hope!
If anyone could run this on real hardware (target platform is 8088 @ 8MHz with an EGA, but anything retro will do) and report back (with some screenshots, maybe? 😀 ) that'd be fantastic.

Looks like a promising start. I'm not sure what framerate you were hoping for, but I've attached logs from my Pocket 8086 (Running an AMD 8088) at both 4.77 and 9.54Mhz. Note that this laptop has VGA, and possibly faster RAM, so not really representative of what an original IBM Compatible could do.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-02-25, 10:55:

Looks like a promising start. I'm not sure what framerate you were hoping for, but I've attached logs from my Pocket 8086 (Running an AMD 8088) at both 4.77 and 9.54Mhz. Note that this laptop has VGA, and possibly faster RAM, so not really representative of what an original IBM Compatible could do.

You are too kind. Also thank you for the logs!