My idea is make a DOSBox like with virtualbox and FreeDOS (or MS-DOS).
Is it possible?
Only need install DOS in virtual box, or need something else? Can FreeDOS have a GUI for open, per example, games more easily?
Answer
I have just done it. Some obstacles could've been finding Dos Shell, or getting an incorrect ms-dos version error(which can happen when you mix and match), fortunately I found dos shell, and had no 'incorrect msdos version' error running it, and similarly you can do the same and get no error. I will explain how
Stage 1- Get DOS running in virtualbox.. Get a C prompt
Stage 2- Get DOS SHELL(DOS's classic file manager) on there.
For Stage 1
Download an MS DOS image.. I downloaded MSDOS 6.22
And in Virtualbox, create your new machine, then in the menu load your floppy image that you downloaded
Then you get an A prompt rather than a C prompt
If you type C: you get some error.. maybe invalid drive specification. So type FDISK and create a new partition and then click Machine..Reset
Then if you do C: you get a different error like General failure reading drive C, that means it's there it just needs to be formatted.
So do A:\>format c: /s
then click machine..reset you can even remove the flopy drive so device..floppy.. then uncheck the image.
Now that's stage 1 done. You have MSDOS booting to a C prompt. You just need DOS SHELL now.
So Stage 2 - that's the stage for getting DOS SHELL
I found this website
http://www.pcxt-micro.com/download.html
http://www.pcxt-micro.com/download/dosshell.zip
I figured there was a high "risk" of getting an "Incorrect MS-DOS version error" which is an error i've never really got to the bottom of in 20 years of computing so i'm glad not to have gotten that error. You won't either.
Then I looked to make a floppy image I downloaded a program that'd do it WinImage.. it'a a trial program but it is OK for this
http://www.winimage.com/download.htm
I tried adding the DOS SHELL files to the original image but it said the image was full. So within Win Image, I did file..new, then dragged the files into it and it put them in. Then File..Save As. And I named the image. Win Image lets you save as imz which is compressed, or as IMA. Go for IMA not IMZ. Virtualbox or DOS rather, doesn't recognize IMZ
And remember your DOS system in virtualbox is booting from C now. And you're not making a bootable image this time. Just an image with DOS SHELL on it. So now do DIR from A: so A:\>DIR and you see dos shell files there.
do md c:\dosshell copy a:\*.* c:\dosshell
c:\dosshell>dosshell
And hey presto DOS SHELL launches.
Use right ctrl in virtualbox to grab the mouse cursor.
I just tried launching a program from DOS SHELL you can..
But really if you are using DOS then use it properly rather than use a file manager. Even using a file manager from DOS isn't that pretty.. e.g. using tab and arrow keys. Learning to use the CD command and DIR command won't kill you really.
Here is Xenon 2 launched from DOS SHELL (and it did launch from DOS SHELL)
http://www.abandonwaredos.com/abandonware-game.php?gid=ODQw
I used xcopy to copy it from an image I made on A, to C. xcopy is on the 6.22 image.. I copied all the files on that 6.22 image to c:\commands and did set path=c:\;c:\commands
But Xenon 2 in virtualbox is slower than I think it would be on DOSBOX, and there's no sound.
And I would add that in addition to dosbox or to virtualbox, there is this magnificent innovation from archive.org where you can play dos games in your browser it's done with javascript apparently https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos
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