Five OS emulators to put you in an alternate environment
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Introduction
Introduction
Emulatorsrnare among my favorite tech-related items to play around with during my freerntime. Maybe it’s just me, but there is something cool about being able to runrnan alternate OS on your PC, especially when that alternate OS is somethingrnreally off the wall. Let’s take a look at five emulators old and new.
Note: This gallery is also available as an article.
DOSBox
DOSBox
One of the great things about DOSBox is that unlike many ofrnthe other DOS emulators, it supports sound. Some of the old DOS games requiredrnyou to specify the IRQ, DMA, and base memory address of your sound card. DOSBoxrnactually makes it possible to do that. The other thing I like about DOSBox isrnthat you can use hot keys to do things like capture sound, record a video, takerna screenshot, and change the emulator’s speed.
DOSBoxrnis available as a free download.
Andy OS
Andy OS
ThernSetup wizard will download and install VirtualBox if it is not already presentrnon your system. In my case the setup process took a little while, but it wasrncompletely painless.
Mocha
Mocha
There are two things I really like about this emulator. First,rnwhoever built it really got it right. The emulator is a faithful recreation ofrnthe Color Computer 2 and its operating environment. The second thing I like aboutrnthis emulator is that it’s linked to a ton of free software, a lot of which arerngames I used to play on my computer as a child.
Commodore 64 Emulator
Commodore 64 Emulator
CCS64 is free and is designed to run on top of Windows. Itrndoes a really good job of re-creating the Commodore 64 OS and even emulatesrndisk and tape drives. One of the coolest things about this emulator is that itrnsupports multi-player game play over the internet.
iPadian
iPadian
iPadian re-creates the look and feel of an iOS environment,rnbut it isn’t a true iOS environment. In fact, even the apps that are found inrnthe free app store are mostly re-creations of popular apps rather than the realrnthing. The app store contains games such as Plants vs. Zombies 2, Clash ofrnClans, and Cut the Rope. However, there are nowhere near as many apps as yournwould find on a real iPad.
iPadian is probably best suited to those who want to try outrnsome of the more popular iOS apps but who don’t have a physical iOS device. It’srnlimited, to say the least. But if you can accept those limitations, it’s not arnbad program. You can download an ad-supported version of iPadian for free orrnyou can purchase the no-ad version for $5.00.
