EMU8086 - MICROPROCESSOR EMULATOR

EMU8086 Microprocessor Emulator is a virtual computer application that emulates all of the features offered by the 16-bit iAPX 86 chip from Intel. Originally released in 1978, the iAPX integrated circuit ran at a clock rate of somewhere between 5-10 MHz, which means that modern hardware can run EMU8086 at an incredibly fast speed. By utilizing the software's speed control, it may even be possible to run programs far faster than they would have ever been able to run on bare metal. Throttling controls are included because this might end up being far too fast.

Considering that the original Intel 8086 was often used in early IBM PCs as well as some clone models, the obvious use case for EMU8086 is to run certain types of DOS applications that wouldn't be able to run under modern hardware in most circumstances. This includes a wide variety of games that were designed to run on original series personal computers.

Since it's designed to explicitly model the functionality of a physical iAPX 86 computer chip, EMU8086 won't work with anything that requires an expanded memory manager. It's also not capable of emulating the full instruction set of something like an Intel 286, but few people who would want a piece of software like this would be very interested in those things anyway. It's not intended for people to run full graphical environments or anything that would be as intensive as a modern piece of software.

Rather, EMU8086 was made with total compatibility of 1970s-era hardware in mind. That means the developers went for a bug-for-bug equivalency that ensures a large percentage of software designed for the original 8086 chip will run just as it did on a desktop clone machine. Programmers and experimenters might wish to explore the x86 instruction set in full. Since this application supports conventional interrupts and debug figures, this is a relatively simple task as long as one already knows the ASM calls needed to get the job done.

Those who are more interested in exploring commercial-grade software might want to experiment with a BASIC interpreter, which again should work every bit as efficiently on this emulator as it would have when run on actual hardware. Traditional Gee Whiz BASIC applications will run as expected under EMU8086, and users are free to develop their own if they so choose.

Due to copyright-related problems, little software is included with EMU8086. Those who have the standard packages from Microsoft or Ashton-Tate shouldn't have much difficulty moving them into the emulator, however. Some CP/M packages from Digital Research may also be suitable for deployment on EMU8086. Interested parties are encouraged to tinker with the settings panel in order to find the optimal method of running whichever period-accurate solution they're looking to implement in software.

Pros

• May run some kinds of MS-DOS games
• Provides bug-for-bug emulation
• Runs fast on modern hardware

Cons

• No support for 80286 hardware
• Won't work with expanded memory management