Dioscuri: the emulator for digital preservation
Posted on 25th September 2007
The Koninklijke Bibliotheek - national library of the Netherlands - and the Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands are proud to present Dioscuri, the first modular emulator designed for digital preservation.
Dioscuri is capable of emulating an Intel 8086-based computer platform with support for VGA-graphics, screen, keyboard, and storage devices like a virtual floppy drive and hard drive. With these components Dioscuri successfully runs 16-bit operating systems like MS-DOS and applications such as WordPerfect 5.1, DrawPerfect 1.1 and Norton Commander. Furthermore, it is capable of running many nostalgic DOS-games and a simple Linux kernel. And when you finally open your long-forgotten WP5.1-files you can extract the text from the emulated environment into your current working environment using a simple clipboard-feature.
Development of the emulator started in January 2006 and was lead by Tessella Support Services plc. Together with emulation proponent Jeff Rothenberg the PC-architecture was examined and translated into a software representation, resulting in a modular emulator. Although developing an emulator is not an easy task, the project made it clear that with a limited resources it is possible to build one. With a total effort of roughly two man-years, Dioscuri has been designed, developed and tested.
Next steps are already in progress. Since July 2007 development of Dioscuri is continued under the umbrella of the European project Planets. Future work will consist of extending Dioscuri with more components to emulate newer x86 computers (286, 386, 486 and Pentium) which will make Dioscuri capable of running operating systems like MS Windows 95/98/2000/XP and Linux Ubuntu.
For more info and download of Dioscuri
Dioscuri is capable of emulating an Intel 8086-based computer platform with support for VGA-graphics, screen, keyboard, and storage devices like a virtual floppy drive and hard drive. With these components Dioscuri successfully runs 16-bit operating systems like MS-DOS and applications such as WordPerfect 5.1, DrawPerfect 1.1 and Norton Commander. Furthermore, it is capable of running many nostalgic DOS-games and a simple Linux kernel. And when you finally open your long-forgotten WP5.1-files you can extract the text from the emulated environment into your current working environment using a simple clipboard-feature.
Development of the emulator started in January 2006 and was lead by Tessella Support Services plc. Together with emulation proponent Jeff Rothenberg the PC-architecture was examined and translated into a software representation, resulting in a modular emulator. Although developing an emulator is not an easy task, the project made it clear that with a limited resources it is possible to build one. With a total effort of roughly two man-years, Dioscuri has been designed, developed and tested.
Next steps are already in progress. Since July 2007 development of Dioscuri is continued under the umbrella of the European project Planets. Future work will consist of extending Dioscuri with more components to emulate newer x86 computers (286, 386, 486 and Pentium) which will make Dioscuri capable of running operating systems like MS Windows 95/98/2000/XP and Linux Ubuntu.
For more info and download of Dioscuri