Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS in a browser

[Jim H. <jh...@fr...>]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 10:44 AM, Dale E Sterner <sun...@ju...> wrote:

> There something very special about this link and I'm too ignorant to know
> what it is.
> What is v86?
>
> DS
>
> > >> http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=freedos
>


v86 is a virtual x86 emulator. It's like VirtualPC or Bochs or VMWare or
VirtualPC or QEMU or VirtualBox or any other PC emulator .. except v86 runs
entirely in your web browser. You don't need to run a local emulator.

JavaPC (aka 'JPC') and PCjs are other examples of a PC emulator that runs
in the web browser.

The tradeoff is that all the data lives on a web server somewhere, not your
own computer. So the end-user has no control over what software gets
installed. But if you want to let others experiment with your system (for
example, to try out FreeDOS) without the risk of having to install it on
their own, running the emulator in a browser isn't a bad idea.

I'm thinking about adding something like this to the freedos.org website so
people can try out FreeDOS. Not sure about bandwidth and web server
requirements yet, though - so no promises.


Jim