21

I am looking for a emulator for MS-DOS for OS X to run old games on.

Are there any free emulators for MS-DOS that run on an Apple machine with OS X?

6 Answers6

33

The nicest DOS emulator for macOS is Boxer, which is a macOS-specific version of DOSBox. Not only is it free, it's free software (or open source if you prefer); its source code is available and freely modifiable. On modern Macs you’ll need the forked Boxer with 64-bit support.

Boxer or DOSBox or DOSBox-X are the best option nowadays for running old DOS games (they have pretty good hardware emulation for the kinds of peripherals used with games). If you want a full-blown, free, DOS experience, you could install FreeDOS inside a VirtualBox virtual machine, but that's more complicated to set up; in particular, VirtualBox's guest additions aren't available for DOS, so it's harder to transfer files from your macOS environment to your DOS environment than it is with Boxer. Instead of FreeDOS, inside VirtualBox, you could also try DR-DOS, or MS-DOS if you have a license for it.

If you're looking to really experience what the operating system was like back when it was still in widespread use, you'll need to find an old PC and run DOS directly on it — a lot of the quirks of daily DOS use are related to the hardware of the time (IRQ handling, memory management...), and emulation environments, be they DOS emulators such as DOSBox or full-blown virtual machines such as VirtualBox, don't allow you to relive that to the same extent.

Stephen Kitt
  • 121,835
  • 17
  • 505
  • 462
  • 2
    DOSBox isn't an MS-DOS emulator. It's a hardware emulator really. Many MS-DOS functions are not supported. Question really should be retitled. – Thraka May 12 '16 at 17:27
  • If you have a copy of command.com, (which I believe Microsoft released freely a few years ago), you can turn it into an MS-DOS emulator! – wizzwizz4 May 12 '16 at 17:41
  • @wizzwizz4 but will that work on OS X? –  May 12 '16 at 17:49
  • @EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ Inside DOSBox (or Boxer), yes! – wizzwizz4 May 12 '16 at 17:51
  • @Thraka it emulates the DOS kernel, which is more than a hardware emulator does. It's missing quite a few DOS commands, yes, but that's because it's designed to run DOS games rather than provide a full DOS environment. It does provide everything needed to run the various DOS Rogue ports. – Stephen Kitt May 12 '16 at 17:59
  • @wizzwizz4, COMMAND.COM hasn't been released for free by Microsoft, it still requires an MS-DOS license. You can run FreeDOS's FreeCOM for the same effect... – Stephen Kitt May 12 '16 at 18:03
  • 1
    I believe the actual intention of @EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ is to play the DOS version of NetHack (if that's the case, editing the question to reflect that might help getting more directed answers and would make this answer more valid), where a fully-blown command.com might not be required. A plain DOSBox/Boxer might or might not be sufficient. – blubberdiblub May 12 '16 at 18:03
  • @blubberdiblub that's my understanding as well; and for that purpose Boxer on its own is indeed entirely sufficient. – Stephen Kitt May 12 '16 at 18:07
  • 1
    DOSBox's compatibility list shows Nethack as having near-perfect support. – Mark May 12 '16 at 18:10
  • DOSBox / Boxer would be perfectly sufficient for running nethack (or most old DOS games). If you wanted a full DOS environment for other reasons (and wanted something free) you'd be better off with FreeDOS link running on a virtual machine like VirtualBox link. – mnem May 12 '16 at 18:13
  • @EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ it's pretty much the same as my second paragraph... – Stephen Kitt May 12 '16 at 18:36
  • StephenKitt It pretty much is, yes. I didn't see that, apparently I wasn't paying attention. @EasterlyIrk I didn't post it as an answer since its overkill for just playing games. Dosbox does a much better job for games since it makes a lot of things easier, especially as Stephen pointed out, file transfers. In Dosbox the contents of your virtual hard drive are just a folder in your normal file system that you can copy any files you like to. In a virtual machine you'd actually need to use emulated hardware to get files to it from your host (virtual floppy, virtual network card, etc.) – mnem May 12 '16 at 19:03
  • 1
    @mnem no worries, I think you started writing your comment while I was writing that update! – Stephen Kitt May 12 '16 at 19:08
  • I've had amazingly good results with FreeDOS under VirtualBox. As far as getting files moved over I have resorted to burning the files onto CDs and then mounting the CDs to copy back over. A little awkward, but like most people I've still got a mountain of CD-Rs left over from the old days! :-) – Brian Knoblauch Jul 23 '19 at 18:10
  • 1
    @Brian that does work; you can also “burn” CD contents to ISO images instead of using a CD-R, and mount the image in the VM. I recently came across EtherDFS which provides file transfers between DOS and Linux systems, but I haven’t tried running the DOS part in a VM. – Stephen Kitt Jul 23 '19 at 18:33
  • 1
    A transient comment from the distant future: in this reality Apple eliminated 32-bit support from macOS, as we call it in these times. This broke the main distribution of Boxer, at least temporarily. We had to use unofficial builds such as the one provided via https://www.dosgameclub.com/forums/topic/boxer-app-64-bit/ to continue DOSBoxing, in between our flying car journeys and meal tablet consumption. – Tommy Nov 20 '19 at 22:19
  • Thanks, @Tommy from the future, I’ve added that information. I envy your flying cars, but not your meal tablets ;-). What kind of crazy jumpsuits do you wear? – Stephen Kitt Nov 21 '19 at 07:43
4

I have had great success with the Qemu emulator! I have been able to run (emulate) DOS and MS-DOS on an Apple computer with it. Because some versions of DOS may require a different CPU architecture than what your Apple runs on, you can use Qemu to emulate another CPU architecture. Here is the homepage to help get you started: http://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page

Retro Gamer
  • 2,435
  • 3
  • 17
  • 38
3

Although I don't recommend this course of action except for educational purposes, it is possible to do a bare-metal boot of FreeDOS on some x86 Macs. The problem with actually using it (as opposed to noodling around in wonder that it works at all) is that most interesting DOS software gets down and dirty with the hardware, and a modern Mac isn't exactly register-level compatible with a 1990s-era PC.

pndc
  • 11,222
  • 3
  • 41
  • 64
0

In https://msdos-games.com you can play ms-dos games emulated in your browser.

Alberto Albertov
  • 9
  • 1
0

Doxbox for Mac would work. I have Dosbox for PC (Windows 10). I love it and use it run everything from 1980 or later. I have GW-Basic, Turbo Pascal, Old games like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy from the early 90's. You can run off a flash drive or hard drive.

DosBox 0.74

Another thing you try..Something my uber extreme computer geek of a son did. Partitioned the drive and installed windows 7 on one, and Linux on the other. Apparently it worked so don't quote me on it.

-2

I was playing sometime in the past and I'm very satisfied with the RetroArch Emu.

wizzwizz4
  • 18,543
  • 10
  • 78
  • 144
Gemu
  • 1
  • 1
    Given your other posts across the network, I take it you’re involved with Retrostic, is that correct? “All the emulators” is a bit of an exaggeration, there are only two listed here. – Stephen Kitt Jul 23 '19 at 18:40
  • Yeah… you should definitely be letting us know you want to advertise Retrostic. I've edited your answer to remove reference to Retrostic from it – please read How not to be a spammer before you try to edit it back in. – wizzwizz4 Jul 23 '19 at 19:03