Last Updated or created 2023-07-21
PCem (short for PC Emulator) is an IBM PC emulator for Windows and Linux that specializes in running old operating systems and software that are designed for IBM PC compatibles. Originally developed as an IBM PC XT emulator, it later added support for other IBM PC compatible computers as well.
The big difference with PCem and Dosbox is the fact that you can configure many systems from 8088 to pentium, soundcards and graphic cards (like hercules, CGA, EGA VGA and alike)
You won’t start in MS-DOS, you can boot from a virtual floppy, just what i needed!
Update : Typing boot disk.img in dosbox works
I’ve installed PCem using:
cd pcem/ sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev sudo apt-get install libopenal-dev tar xzvf ../PCemV17Linux.tar.gz ./configure make clean make # first start (complains about roms, but creates ~/.pcem/... ./pcem cd ~/.pcem/roms # git clone roms git clone https://github.com/BaRRaKudaRain/PCem-ROMs.git mv PCem-ROMs/* ./ rm -rf PCem-ROMs
Below a simple example, booting a floppy with a custom made bootsector.
I’m still searching for our bootblock demo, which uses VGA graphics and a music loader using Soundblaster.
We made this around the 90’s, and i have never seen a demo then booting a demo without dos.
Scrollers, music, starfields etc.
NOTE: Dos calls can’t be used, that’s not loaded. So NO int 21h software functions!
The disk image I created using my real original 5.25″ floppy, and converted this with my Fluxengine.
One of the other bootblock thingy’s I made, An amiga guru meditation error. (below a old capture)
When a corrupted disk or faulty software was booted using a amiga you often could see an error like this, now you could have it on you PC!
Original screen capture of a Guru Meditation.
You can see, mine is a little different, because of the font spacing and color.
PCem info
Systems / motherboards emulated : 8088 AMI XT clone Atari PC3 Compaq Portable Plus DTK Clone XT (c)Anonymous Generic Turbo XT BIOS IBM PC IBM PCjr IBM XT Juko XT clone NCR PC4i Phoenix XT clone Schneider Euro PC Tandy 1000 Tandy 1000HX Thomson TO16 PC Toshiba T1000 VTech Laser Turbo XT Zenith Data SupersPort Xi8088 8086 Amstrad PC1512 Amstrad PC1640 Amstrad PC2086 Amstrad PC3086 Amstrad PC5086 Amstrad PPC512/640 Compaq Deskpro Olivetti M24 Sinclair PC200/Amstrad PC20 Tandy 1000SL/2 Toshiba T1200 VTech Laser XT3 286 AMI 286 clone Award 286 clone Bull Micral 45 Commodore PC30-III Compaq Portable II Dell System 200 Epson PC AX Epson PC AX2e GW-286CT GEAR IBM AT IBM PS/1 Model 2011 IBM PS/2 Model 30-286 IBM PS/2 Model 50 IBM XT Model 286 Samsung SPC-4200P Samsung SPC-4216P Toshiba T3100e Tulip AT Compact 386SX Acermate 386SX/25N AMI 386SX clone Amstrad MegaPC DTK 386SX clone Epson PC AX3 IBM PS/1 Model 2121 IBM PS/2 Model 55SX KMX-C-02 Packard Bell Legend 300SX Samsung SPC-6033P 386DX AMI 386DX clone Compaq Deskpro 386 IBM PS/2 Model 70 (type 3) IBM PS/2 Model 80 MR 386DX clone Samsung SPC-6000A 486 AMI 486 clone AMI WinBIOS 486 clone Award SiS 496/497 Elonex PC-425X IBM PS/2 Model 70 (type 4) Packard Bell PB410A Socket 4/5/7 (Pentium) ASUS P/I-P55TVP4 ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 Award 430VX PCI Epox P55-VA Intel Advanced/EV (Endeavor) Intel Advanced/ZP (Zappa) Intel Premiere/PCI (Batman's Revenge) Packard Bell PB520R (Robin LC) Packard Bell PB570 (Hillary) Super Socket 7 (K6-2/III) FIC VA-503+ Socket 8 (Pentium Pro) Intel VS440FX Slot 1 (Pentium II) Gigabyte GA-686BX Graphics cards emulated : 3DFX Voodoo Graphics 3DFX Voodoo 2 ATI Graphics Pro Turbo (Mach64 GX) ATI Video Xpression (Mach64 VT2) ATI VGA Edge-16 (ATI-18800) ATI VGA Charger (ATI-28800) CGA Cirrus Logic CL-GD5429 Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430 Cirrus Logic CL-GD5434 Compaq CGA Diamond Stealth 32 (Tseng ET4000/w32p) Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 (S3 ViRGE/325) Hercules Hercules InColor IBM EGA IBM VGA MDA MDSI Genius Number Nine 9FX (S3 Trio64) OAK OTI-037 OAK OTI-067 Olivetti GO481 (Paradise PVGA1A) Paradise Bahamas 64 (S3 Vision864) Phoenix S3 Trio32 Phoenix S3 Trio64 Plantronics ColorPlus S3 ViRGE/DX Sigma Color 400 Trident TVGA8900D Trident TGUI9400CXi Trident TGUI9440 Trigem Korean VGA (Tseng ET4000AX) Tseng ET4000AX Wsye 700 Sound cards emulated : AdLib AdLib Gold Ensoniq AudioPCI GameBlaster Gravis UltraSound Sound Blaster v1.0 Sound Blaster v1.5 Sound Blaster MCV Sound Blaster v2.0 Sound Blaster Pro v1 Sound Blaster Pro v2 Sound Blaster Pro MCV Sound Blaster 16 Sound Blaster AWE32 Sound Blaster PCI128 Windows Sound System