For those of us who grew up around old computers and the programs that ran on them, a special place will exist in our hearts for such programs as emulators, which allow us to revisit those days of computer yore. DOSBox is one such program with the magical ability to return us to the earlier days of the IBM PC and the Disk Operating System (DOS) that governed it.

DOSBox emulates, or acts as, a full-blown installation of DOS, in essence, operating as if it is an old, personal computer system. It allows one to run software designed for DOS on newer computer systems and perhaps even embedded devices. This mature emulator boasts a massive compatibility roster of existing DOS software and since the development has not ceased, where it lacks compatibility, the issue is often addressed in due time.

Arguably, the most popular use of the DOSBox software is to play old, computer videogames. This should be easily attested to in the massive compatibility list on the DOSBox web site, comprised of nearly only videogames. For aficianados of archaic videogames, this emulator is a welcomed friend, especially since support of old DOS games has become increasingly lacking in newer iterations of the Microsoft Windows platform and to run such games otherwise requires quite a bit of tedious computer hacking. Fortunately, with the advent of DOSBox, playing those old games became quite a simple task, made drastically simpler by the various front-ends designed to make DOSBox that much easier to operate.

Cross-platform versions of DOSBox exist on Windows, MacOSX and Linux and even such far-fetched systems as the XBox original can run a specialized version (with a modchip installed). The luxury of this cross-platform capability cannnot be underscored, for it allows one to run software previously only able to be run on a Microsoft Windows or DOS system, on any system which the emulator is ported to. Greater still is the fact that some businesses which previously operated on DOS software can now access that old software on their system of choice.

There are other emulators out there and even other emulators that handle DOS, but DOSBox stands above its DOS emulation peers with its set of features, usability and especially community support. Its open source nature has a great deal of effect on ensuring that its development will continue and, as with most open source programs, it has a very attractive price tag (it’s free)!

Personally, I can’t count the number of DOS programs I’ve run flawlessly through the emulator and where there were flaws, it was a often a matter of a month or two before the flaws were fixed by a new release. I give this amazing software a rating of five stars and I suggest it to anyone looking for computerized nostalgia.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars