The project 86Box 5.0 has been introduced, presenting an emulator based on the X86 architecture. This emulator enables the launch of old operating systems and applications, including those used on early 1980s IBM PC 5150 and IBM PS/2 computers. The project focuses on low-level emulation of systems, ranging from 8086 processors to Intel Seleron Mendocino. The project code is written in the language C and is distributed under the GPLv2 license.
To facilitate the management of work, a graphical interface has been provided with capabilities for setting up virtual machines. The emulator supports emulation of various peripheral devices such as video adapters, sound cards, network cards, and hard drive controllers. It also supports a wide range of operating systems including MS-DOS, Windows 3.11/95, OS/2, various Linux distributions, BEOS, NextStep, and other older systems.
In the latest release:
- Preliminary implementation of built-in virtual machines has been introduced, providing an interface for controlling emulation and launching virtual environments without requiring additional configurations. The created virtual machines can be saved in “~/.local/share/86Box/virtual machines”.
- Enhanced mouse operation and screen rendering, especially on high-refresh-rate monitors.
- The component for drawing has been fully rewritten using OpenGL 3.0, allowing the use of shader effects when emulating the display. Support for GLSL shaders format has been added, along with the ability to use multiple shaders simultaneously and configure shader parameters through the GUI.
- Emulation support has been added for NEC PC-98, OKI IF386AX30, and IBM PS/55 Model 5550 computers; as well as for video cards JEGA and JVGA.
- Emulation of early CD drive models using Panasonic/Matsushita proprietary interfaces before ATAPI has been included, with support for MDS/MDF CDs.
- User interface improvements include support for dark mode in Windows, keyboard indicators in the status bar, and display refresh rate. Additionally, users can now customize key combinations for actions like capturing the mouse pointer, creating screenshots, pausing execution, and restarting.