While I completely agree with you -- that's what I would want too, I want Win98 without the pain, click or type and it's there, it's a very 2025 expectation -- I laughed because of the huge disparity between this and what installing DOS and Windows were really like. Part of the experience is selecting drivers and configuration :D (Even better in DOS with the IRQs and config.sys and whatnot.)
PCem does it relatively pain free; also emulates voodoo 2 so you can play GPU accelerated games on it. The network is pig-slow and i haven't figured out why, though. All in all PCem is the exact amount of jank and awesome to use for retro-emulation.
it emulates ~8086 through Pentium II or so. maybe a bit further on both sides; my machine struggled to maintain 100% emulation speed with the highest end CPU selected.
oh, i've used that too, but i didn't know that - it's been a while.
This gives me the opportunity to test out my wiki install for note-taking in real time; set up 86box and do the same things i've been doing with pcem (clone the drives (copy/paste)), screenshots, the works. +1
Different boot disks and later different menu items in configsys and autoexecbat to control which drivers were loaded and where (himem etc) to launch different games
I don’t recall how it was all figured out int he days before modems. I remember dos came with a nice chunky set of manuals, I guess games might have had information in there too, but I for one don’t really understand the different between high and low in the first megabyte, or between extended and expanded memory, or what an Irq really was, I just knew you had to live the jumpers on the sound card - which I assume I got from the manual.
I agree with that, but then I tried the setup, and i found it was straightforward.
playing with it gives you a sense of mastery (even if small), is satisfying, and may be the necessary "training" to get used to using/installing/configuring the full windows 98.
How is it even doing this? A full DOS/Windows 9x environment—running on an M1 Mac?? On so many architectures and OSes? With a ton of options, yet somehow everything just works—games, operating systems, all of it. Like a time machine you can configure. Seriously cool
i got windows 98 networking working (on macos needs sudo dosbox-x) and browsed google from ie 5. most websites will not work (due to TLS/cipher mismatch).
i want to write a very thin, old JS client for BrowserBox to let you connect to bbx running on local network so that old OS like this can browse the modern web.
But I think could do with usability improvements, for example typing 'dosbox win98.iso' at a prompt should end up with me at the win98 desktop.
All the config should be auto detected and auto set unless overridden.