DR-DOS

[Peter Corlett]

On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 08:15:00PM +0100, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
[...]
> A file-based virus could escape _if_ the VM had access to the host
> filesystem. But mine don't, partly because it's moderately hard, partly
> because it takes a _ton_ of RAM in DOS terms.

Not really: QEMU can be configured to add a Virtio device, which exposes a host
filesystem via 9P (the Plan 9 filesystem protocol). A DOS device driver for
that would be of comparable complexity to a CD-ROM driver.

[...]
> DOSbox is an emulator, so I've not looked at it. Ditto Bochs.
> DOSemu works but it's not very stable. It's easy to crash it and lose
> your session.
> I don't think there's much chance of getting DESQview or anything
> ambitious like that running on it.

I bet QEMU would run them. The only real downside is that its documentation is
dire so advanced configuration to cope with more bizarre requirements is more
difficult than it ought to be.

The gdbserver support is also invaluable for people who hack on kernels. It
works nicely on 32 and 64 bit code, but I've never tried to debug 16 bit code
with it.