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I have written a small 16-bit assembly program that writes some values in some memory locations.Is there a way I can test it in 32-bit protected mode on Linux?

vjain27
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2 Answers2

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qemu, dosbox, bochs

Yann Ramin
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Yes, 16-bit code is supported in user processes in Linux. The system call to do it is called vm86() (there's a man page, but there's not much in it). It is, naturally, only works on x86 platforms (and 32-bit only).

If you want an example, the ELKS project has a complete tool for running ELKS 8086 binaries on Linux, which uses it:

https://github.com/lkundrak/dev86/tree/master/elksemu

Look for the run_elks() function. It's pretty straightforward.

David Given
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  • Is there any analogous syscall in x86_64? – Ciro Santilli Путлер Капут 六四事 May 07 '18 at 09:29
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    @CiroSantilli包子露宪六四事件法轮功 v86 mode isn't supported inside x86-64 native mode. To implement this syscall, Linux would have to switch to 32-bit mode, only then to v86, which would be too much of an overhead for small benefit. But then, there's a [V86-64](http://v86-64.sourceforge.net/) patch (last updated in 2008). – Ruslan May 08 '18 at 13:40