I just needed a break from chasing the endless Win 3.1 protected-mode bugs, so I started a side project focused on music playback: an experimental OPL synthesizer that I can eventually plug directly into Daveemu’s SoundBlaster/AdLib paths.

daveemu_opl_play is currently a standalone executable, an...

Over the last two weeks I have been working on stabilizing 286 protected mode in Daveemu. It took far more time than I expected, because getting "something that boots" is only the beginning. Once 286 protected mode started working, emulator performance dropped dramatically due to the extra 286-speci...

Over the last few days I have been pushing forward on several fronts, and I also published a short YouTube video showing a quick installation flow for MS-DOS 3.30 and Windows 2.10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyJ-g8DnEoM

Quite a lot of time also went into MS-DOS 5.0 compatibility work, but th...

The last few days have been especially productive, and the biggest milestone is that Windows 2.10 for 286 now boots cleanly inside daveemu and stays stable without the graphical glitches that were blocking progress before.

The root cause was a particularly difficult EGA/VGA rendering bug under Win...

The last four weeks have been extremely busy - more so than when I was working full-time for a company. When they "let me go" (yes, said with a pinch of sarcasm), I finally had the time to focus on this project and make real progress.

Since the previous post a lot has happened. The biggest change...

Over the last few days, I managed to get DOS 5.5 booting correctly. HIMEM.SYS handling is now working as expected and no longer breaks the startup sequence.

I also started testing Windows 2.0/286. The boot process is now successful, but VGA modes still cause display corruption in some cases, and g...

Today I worked on mouse support in DaveEmu. It took a few hours of focused work, but the implementation is now in a good working state.

The key challenge was host/guest coordinate integration, so mouse movement and clicks are correctly translated from host screen space into MS-DOS guest coordinate...

I am not slowing down, and development is moving forward steadily.

Recently I worked on the HDD sound synthesizer partly for fun, and partly to clear my mind after spending time in the darker corners of x86 internals. We are using multiple harmonics, but this part still needs tuning to reach the r...

We have launched a new YouTube channel for Daveemu:

https://www.youtube.com/@daveemu-retro

This is where we will publish videos showing development progress, emulator milestones, retro software tests, and practical demos.

If you want to follow the project in video form, this is the best place...

Daveemu is a new PC emulator project focused on the Intel 80286 era, built in C++ with a strong emphasis on deterministic behavior and practical performance.

Current progress at a glance

• On an Intel i9-9900K, we currently reach up to 80 MHz equivalent emulation speed, even in single-cor...