First, DOSBox is an open source emulator that lets you run old DOS programs (which means, mostly games ;) . It simulates a PC compatible machine, complete with Intel CPU and typical graphics and audio cards of the time. DOSBox was ported by dreamlayers to Emscripten a while ago, which was an impressive achievement, and let you run practically any old DOS game right in your browser, no plugins required. Recently, two separate projects have picked it up and are running with it:
- The Internet Archive has an MS-DOS showcase (for more details see Jason Scott's blog). At the time of this post, it has over 2,400 programs up. This is amazing for helping to preserve an entire era in computing history.
- The ever-porting caiiiycuk created js-dos.com. This has a much smaller selection of programs, but the site itself is a tribute to the days of MS-DOS, really very nice work - it brings back some of the feeling of those times.