86Box

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86Box
86box.png
86Box 2017-07-21 13-41-37.png
Developer(s) OBattler
Latest version v2.00
Active Yes
Platform(s) Windows
Emulates Intel CPUs
Website 86box.github.io/
License GNU GPLv2
Source code GitHub

86Box is an open-source, low-level PC emulator. It focuses on PC hardware from the 80s and 90s. A variety of operating systems can be installed in the emulator, which can then be used to launch programs. It is a fork of PCem. It took over from PCem-X after the latter was deprecated.

Downloads

Overview

To run any program, an operating system needs to be installed in 86Box first. It has a dynamic recompiler that gives accurate Pentium/II support. It can also emulate numerous 2D and 3D cards.

86Box has now introduced a new GUI on Windows. This GUI is much more reminiscent of something like Virtual PC 2007 or VMware than the PCem UI, so users of those bits of software should feel more at home now.

Image support

Floppy

  • IMG (Raw floppy images)
  • TD0
  • FDI (Both Japanese and stream)
  • 86F (Battler's own format, more accurate than IMG, and handles almost any exotic thing you can throw at it.)

Hard disk

  • IMG (Raw hard disk images)
  • HDI (Japanese format, often used with PC-98 emulators)
  • fixed size VHDs (Unofficially, handled as an IMG. Usually works.)

CD-ROM

  • ISO
  • Mounting a real or virtual CD-ROM drive

OS support

An incomplete list of operating systems that can be installed on it:

  • DOS
  • Microsoft Windows versions up to Windows XP (including pre-reset Windows Longhorn builds and Windows Vista build 3790.1232)
  • Select any IA-32 flavor of NT before Vista, it works.
  • OS/2
  • Any flavor of Linux that supports the original Pentium
  • BeOS
  • Minix-PC 1.x, 2.x
  • BSD (Only FreeBSD 6.x and OpenBSD i386 tested, NetBSD/i386 has some boot issue.)
  • NEXTSTEP 3.1 to 3.3, OPENSTEP 4.0 to 4.2 (including Apple Rhapsody developer releases)

Hardware support

Video cards

  • MDA
  • Hercules
  • Hercules Plus
  • Hercules InColor
  • Hercules ColorPlus
  • CGA
  • PCjr
  • Tandy
  • MDSI Genius
  • Sigma Designs Color 400
  • Wyse 700
  • EGA
  • C&T SuperEGA
  • VGA
  • OAK OTI-037c
  • OAK OTI-067
  • OAK OTI-077
  • Trident TVGA8900D
  • Trident TGUI9400CXi
  • Trident TGUI9440AGi
  • Cirrus GD5428 (ISA) to Alpine family (up to 5480 PCI)
  • Tseng ET4000AX (ISA and MCA)
  • Tseng ET4000/W32p (Cardex and Diamond Stealth 32)
  • Various ATI cards before the Mach 64
  • ATI Mach 64 (GX/VT2 variants)
  • S3 Vision864 (Phoenix and Paradise Bahamas 64)
  • S3 Vision964 (Diamond Stealth 64 VRAM)
  • S3 Trio64 (Number Nine, Phoenix and Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM)
  • S3 ViRGE (325/DX/VX variants)
  • 3dfx Voodoo (original and Voodoo 2)
  • Nvidia RIVA 128 (Preliminary)
  • Nvidia RIVA TNT (Preliminary)
  • Nvidia TNT2 (Vanilla, Pro, and Ultra flavors) (Preliminary)

Sound cards

  • PCjr and Tandy
  • Game Blaster or Creative Music System
  • AdLib
  • AdLib Gold
  • Sound Blaster 1.0 through AWE32 (Including select MCA models)
  • Gravis Ultrasound
  • Windows Sound System (ISA and MCA as NCR Business Audio)
  • Innovation SSI-2001
  • Ensoniq AudioPCI (ES1371)
  • Sound Blaster PCI 128
  • Standalone ISA MPU-401
  • Standalone MCA MPU-IMC (MPU-401 for MCA)

The AWE32 has some features missing due to them not being fully understood.

Network cards

  • 3Com 3c503 for ISA
  • NE1000 compatible for ISA
  • NE2000 compatible for ISA and MCA (latter as a Netware NE/2 compatible)
  • Realtek RTL8019AS for ISA PNP.
  • Realtek RTL8029AS for PCI
  • Western Digital WD8003 series for ISA and MCA.

Network cards can use either WinPcap or SLiRP support on the host system, where WinPcap allows for a full network stack, but requires an installation of the WinPcap software on that system, or SLiRP, which basically implements a simple TCP and UDP packet forwarding system based on PAT. This mode does not require additional software to be installed but is limited to basic TCP and UDP based protocols.

The recently re-designed configuration user interface allows for easy configuration of either mode.

Storage cards

  • Xebec MFM Hard Disk controller
  • DTC5150X MFM Hard Disk controller
  • PC/AT (WD1003) MFM Hard Disk controller
  • PC/AT (WD1007V-SE1) ESDI Hard Disk controller
  • IBM PS/2 MCA ESDI Hard Disk controller
  • Universal XTIDE BIOS (both 1.1.5 and 2.0.0b3)
  • Acculogic XTIDE card.
  • Adaptec 154x series ISA SCSI controllers (A/B, C, CF variants + BIOS)
  • Adaptec 1640 MCA SCSI controller + BIOS
  • Buslogic BT-54x series ISA SCSI controllers (542BH, 545S variants + BIOS)
  • Buslogic BT-445S VLB SCSI controller + BIOS
  • Buslogic BT-640A MCA SCSI controller + BIOS
  • Buslogic BT-958D PCI SCSI controller + BIOS
  • NCR 5380-based cards (Longshine, Rancho and Trantor 130B + BIOS)
  • NCR 53c810 PCI SCSI controller (BIOS is embedded into the PCI-based boards)
  • WD-XT150 XTA Hard Disk controller for XT compatibles, IBM PS/1 model 2011 and IBM PS/2 model 30-286

Printers

  • Generic Text printer.
  • Generic Epson ESC/P compatible printer.

Misc add-in cards

  • Adaptec 154xB ISA SCSI adapter
  • Adaptec 154xCF ISA SCSI adapter
  • Buslogic BT-542B ISA SCSI adapter
  • Buslogic BT-958D PCI SCSI adapter

Both disk and CD-ROM device are now supported, and additional development is underway to fully support and implement the BIOS ROMs of these SCSI adapters. Full BIOS support will be needed to be able to boot from these devices.