86Box is an IBM PC

emulator In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use pe ...

for Windows, Linux and Mac based on

PCem PCem (short for PC Emulator) is an IBM PC emulator for Windows and Linux that specializes in running old operating systems and software that are designed for IBM PC compatibles. Originally developed as an IBM PC XT emulator, it later added suppor ...

that specializes in running old operating systems and software that are designed for IBM PC compatibles. Originally forked from PCem, it later added support for other IBM PC compatible computers as well.

Features

Hardware

The main goal of 86Box is to emulate various IBM PC compatible systems/motherboards from 1981 until 1999, which includes almost all IBM PC models (including the IBM PS/1 model 2121 and the IBM PS/2 model 2011) and supports IBM PC compatible systems/motherboards. 86Box is capable of emulating Intel processors (and its respective clones, including

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

, IDT and Cyrix) from

Intel 8088 The Intel 8088 ("''eighty-eighty-eight''", also called iAPX 88) microprocessor is a variant of the Intel 8086. Introduced on June 1, 1979, the 8088 has an eight-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and ...

through the Pentium ''Tillamook'' MMX/Mobile MMX processors and Pentium Pro/Pentium II processors from 1997 until 1999. A recompiler is mandatory for P5 Pentium and Cyrix processors and optional for i486 processors and IDT WinChip processors. A rather fast processor is needed for full emulation speed (such as an

Intel Core i5 The following is a list of Intel Core i5 brand microprocessors. Introduced in 2009, the Core i5 line of microprocessors are intended to be used by mainstream users. Desktop processors Nehalem microarchitecture (1st generation) "Lynnf ...

at 4 GHz). 86Box can emulate different graphic modes, this includes

text mode Text mode is a computer display mode in which content is internally represented on a computer screen in terms of characters rather than individual pixels. Typically, the screen consists of a uniform rectangular grid of ''character cells'', each ...

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the ...

, CGA (including some composite modes and the 160 × 100 × 16 tweaked modes), Tandy, EGA,

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...

(including

Mode X Mode X is an alternative 256-color graphics display mode of the IBM VGA graphics hardware that was popularized by Michael Abrash. It was first published in July 1991 in '' Dr. Dobb's Journal'', and republished in chapters 47-49 of Abrash's ''Graph ...

and other tweaks),

VESA VESA (), formally known as Video Electronics Standards Association, is an American technical standards organization for computer display standards. The organization was incorporated in California in July 1989To retrieve the information, searc ...

, as well as various video APIs such as DirectX and 3Dfx's Glide. 86Box can also emulate various video cards such as the ATI Mach64 GX and the S3 Trio32/64/Virge series. Voodoo cards are also emulated and added support for Voodoo 1/2/3 and various optimizations. A separate recompiler has been added for Voodoo emulation, making it faster to emulate the Voodoo graphics card. 86Box also emulates some sound cards, such as the

AdLib Ad Lib, Inc. was a Canadian manufacturer of sound cards and other computer equipment founded by Martin Prevel, a former professor of music and vice-dean of the music department at the Université Laval. The company's best known product, the ''Ad ...

Sound Blaster Sound Blaster is a family of sound cards designed by Singaporean technology company Creative Technology (known in the US as Creative Labs). Sound Blaster sound cards were the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system pl ...

(including the Game Blaster), Sound Blaster Pro,

Sound Blaster 16 The Sound Blaster 16 is a series of sound cards by Creative Technology. They are add-on boards for PCs with an ISA or PCI slot. Sound Blaster 16 Sound Blaster 16 (June 1992), the successor to the Sound Blaster Pro, introduced CD-quality dig ...

, Sound Blaster AWE32, Gravis UltraSound, Innovation SSI-2001, Aztech Sound Galaxy Pro 16,

Windows Sound System Windows Sound System (WSS) is a sound card specification developed by Microsoft released at the end of 1992 for Windows 3.1. WSS featured support for up to 16-bit, 48 kHz digital sampling, beyond the capabilities of the popular contemporary S ...

, Ensoniq AudioPCI 64V/ES1371, and Sound Blaster PCI 128.

Operating system support

Similar to

Virtual PC Windows Virtual PC (successor to Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, and Connectix Virtual PC) is a Hardware virtualization, virtualization program for Microsoft Windows. In July 2006, Microsoft released the Windows version f ...

Bochs Bochs (pronounced "box") is a portable IA-32 and x86-64 IBM PC compatible emulator and debugger mostly written in C++ and distributed as free software under the GNU Lesser General Public License. It supports emulation of the processor(s) (includin ...

and

QEMU QEMU is a free and open-source emulator (Quick EMUlator). It emulates the machine's central processing unit, processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it t ...

, it emulates almost all versions of Microsoft Windows until

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

(including Service Pack 1);

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; 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 ope ...

FreeDOS FreeDOS (formerly Free-DOS and PD-DOS) is a free software operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. It intends to provide a complete MS-DOS-compatible environment for running legacy software and supporting embedded systems. FreeDOS can ...

and CP/M-86 are also supported. Earlier versions of

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...

requires the hard drive to be formatted prior to installation, while OS/2 Warp 3 until Warp 4.5 requires an unaccelerated video card to run. Other operating systems are also supported on 86Box, such as versions of

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

that supports the Pentium processor, BSD derivatives (e.g. FreeBSD), and BeOS 5, which only works on the Award SiS 497 motherboard.

Host operating system support

Initially exclusive to Windows, it was ported to Linux in version 3.2 and macOS in version 3.4.

Manager

For easier handling of multiple virtual machines at the same time and the change of its parameters, it is recommended to use 86Box with a GUI manager application. Some of them are 86Box Manager, 86Box Manager Lite and WinBox for 86Box, all available as free software too.

References