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DOSBox is a free and open-source emulator which runs software for MS-DOS compatible disk operating systems—primarily video games. It was first released in 2002, when DOS technology was becoming obsolete. Its adoption for running DOS games is widespread, with it being used in commercial re-releases of those games as well. Before Windows XP, consumer-oriented versions of Windows were based on MS-DOS. Windows 3.0 and its updates were operating environments that ran on top of MS-DOS, and the Windows 9x series consisted of operating systems that were still based on MS-DOS. These versions of Windows could run DOS applications. Conversely, the Windows NT operating systems were not based on DOS. A member of the series, Windows XP, debuted on October 25, 2001 and became the first consumer-oriented version of Windows to not use DOS. Although Windows XP could emulate DOS, it could not run many of its applications as they ran only in real mode to directly access the computer's hardware, and Windows XP's protected mode prevented such direct access for security reasons. MS-DOS continued to receive support until the end of 2001, and all support for any DOS-based Windows operating system ended on July 11, 2006. The development of DOSBox began around the launch of Windows 2000—a Windows NT system—when its creators, Dutch programmers Peter Veenstra and Sjoerd van der Berg, discovered that the operating system had dropped much of its support for DOS software. The two knew of solutions at the time, but they could not run the applications in windowed mode or scale the graphics. The project was first uploaded to SourceForge and released for beta testing on July 22, 2002. DOSBox is a command-line program, configured either by a set of command-line arguments or by editing a plain text configuration file. For ease of use, several graphical front ends have been developed by the user community. While the DOSBox project hopes that one day the emulator will run all programs ever made for the PC, the goal is not yet reached, and as of the latest version the primary focus has been on DOS gaming.

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Virtual DOS machine

Virtual DOS machines (VDM) refer to a technology that allows running 16-bit/32-bit DOS and 16-bit Windows programs when there is already another operating system running and controlling the hardware. Virtual DOS machines can operate either exclusively through typical software emulation methods (e.g. dynamic recompilation) or can rely on the virtual 8086 mode of the Intel 80386 processor, which allows real mode 8086 software to run in a controlled environment by catching all operations which involve accessing protected hardware and forwarding them to the normal operating system (as exceptions).

PC game

A personal computer game, also known as computer game or abbreviated PC game, is a electronic game played on a personal computer (PC) and form of video game. They are defined by the open platform nature of PC systems. Mainframe and minicomputer games are a precursor to personal computer games. Home computer games became popular following the video game crash of 1983, leading to the era of the "bedroom coder". In the 1990s, PC games lost mass market traction to console games on the fifth generation such as the Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64 and PlayStation.

MS-DOS

MS-DOS (ˌɛmˌɛsˈdɒs ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system).

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