Need DOS Emulator

January 14, 2012 9:08 AM

Need advice on a DOS emulator to run on a XP SP3 system that does not have, and never will have an internet connection.
posted by Raybun to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Dosbox?

It emulates almost all parts of MS Dos that most programs used, even down to the processor level. Its target is dos 5.0/80386, I think.

Download and move over by USB, or is that not possible?
posted by bonehead at 9:14 AM on January 14, 2012

Microsoft's Virtual PC is free, too. I've had good luck running MS-DOS 6.22 on it.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 10:02 AM on January 14, 2012

Doesn't Virtual PC require Win 7? I don't think it runs on XP, per the OP's request.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:30 AM on January 14, 2012

Hmm, I run in Windows XP, so I know that at least one version works with XP. Maybe the newest version requires 7. In that case, you'd have to download an older version.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 1:03 PM on January 14, 2012

I've got an XP computer and have been playing with emulators lately, and Dosbox works well; I had a few little problems with it, but as far as DOS goes, that's what it does. I have also installed DOS on a Virtualbox (essentially, booted a Dos 6.22 disk, "format /s c:" to make the virtual drive bootable), which I thought was much more straightforward and easier than trying to create and use virtual drives and filesystems in Dosbox. If you just need a straightforward, start-up-dos-and-go, Dosbox does that fine.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:28 PM on January 14, 2012

Thirding Dosbox, I used it to run an ancient dos program for a class last semester. Was much more lightweight and easier than setting windows Virtual PC too.
posted by DJWeezy at 11:21 AM on January 16, 2012