lDosBox
The modified dosbox sources are included as a tgz archive stored in the internal SD card (Android/data/lb.myapp.dosbox).
lDosBox uses the same interface of my Bochs port, lBochs. That means that a virtual PC keyboard is provided, but you can use your own virtual keyboard if you like.
It's possible to create shortcuts for different dosbox configurations, and even shortcuts for programs.
It registers itself for running .bat files, but there are limitations and this may not work on all Android systems.
All the settings are made through a popup menu with quite many options.
The back button usually opens the menu if a menu button is not reported by Android on the device.
Don't mount the root of filesystems containing important data, to avoid deleting them by mistake inside the emulator
N.B. This app was first created as an experiment just for my personal use. Then I decided to make it available to the community as I think it can be interesting. There is no official or guaranteed support and I don't know if I'll maintain it in the future years.
The app is still considered in a sort of beta/testing stage.
Many thanks to:
SDL (libsdl.org) - No porting possible without that
Dosbox (dosbox.com) - They made the real thing
Free icons authors (iconarchive.com) - I'm good at coding but bad at drawing
** WARNING **
The app seems quite stable to me, but it's easily possible to make it very unstable and it may crash immediately if the user plays too much with the configuration, or if the guest system is not managed well.
It's possible that you have to reboot your Android device in some cases.
It's possible that in some cases you have to uninstall and reinstall the app to make it work again.
Than the app may drain your battery quickly, but this depends on the configuration (emulated cpu cycles).
It's possible that the device CPU becomes stressed causing overheating.
So use it at your own risk.
** WARNING **
Category : Tools
Reviews (29)
The loss of access to the SD card makes this app pretty much useless. All the info I can find says that Android 11 restricts access to the Android/data/ directory, not the entire card. Not really sure what is going on here but I hope it gets fixed.
Works on a Samsung S2 tablet. Have run WordPerfect 5.1 and Lotus Magellan v2 as good as I remember them on a dos PC. My old pc keyboard connected with a usb/ micro usb adapter works. I can read but not write to the SD card, but can write to the internal memory storage. However I then have to leave the app to access any of the files created with a file manager to share . Very impressed.
great app but is there a chance you can add absolute mouse (like magicdosbox)? and maybe an option that makes the lmb click when you tap on the screen? controls are good and it's awesome to have all the keys on the screen at once in landscape without having to mess with any widgets. good app
Full onscreen keyboard. Good scaling (be sure to enable "quality zoom" or text is usually illegible). Partly runs Win 3.1; it works fine on VGA, but crashes nonstop if you use S3 drivers. Menus for mounting disks make floppy swapping easy, but CD drive is on E: while games of the time usually expect D:, so manual ISO mounting is necessary. EDIT: I don't see any mention of drive letters in the config or help, can you be more specific?
I cannot believe how stable and useful this is. Almost all of my legacy development tools (except for Clarion 3.1), works perfectly. That includes several Report Writers ; the Multi-Edit text editor ; graphic-intensive Clipper libraries like DBSee and Provision: Windows ; Turbo and PDC Prolog ; and other tools. And it's extremely convenient to add files to Mounted drive. Good stuff. Thanks, Luigi.
Kudos to the developer for sharing this. I'm running the app through chromebook and it crashes my entire system every time I exit the program. Also every time I try to switch tabs or change apps it crashes. Otherwise it works fine but it's too frustrating to use.
Excellent so far and free. It can run gwbasic on a 10 inch android tablet in a way which could be of used to run an old usefully program. Better than some paid versions. (I have not tried with anything else)
This DOS emulator is the one I used to finally complete Ultima V! It worked great with nearly zero glitches. Now I am attempting to play some old DOS games that rely heavily on the mouse and I finally found the mouse sensitivity setting under the screen settings menu. Thanks!
Your on-screen keyboard must die. Trying to use it when you have an actual keyboard is terrible. Also, your app hides the mouse cursor (a little too DOS, lol) for all my apps, so I have to alt+tab out of the app to click anything... Didn't even get to test the emulator, lost all lives on the interface level.
BEST MS-DOS EMULATOR FOR ANDROID. i ❤ this app i can do so much stuff with it and it has options. It does not have basic on the boot disk but i can make a basic and add it with power iso on windows. The app needs xbox 360 controller input options so i can play duke nukem 3d on my phone with a xbox 360 controller because it's easier to play.
Awesome app, everything I hoped it would be. However it took a me a while to get Civ 1 opened. I also had to play with the settings to get a semi-functional keyboard setup. But once I did this app worked like a charm, if you're looking for a dosbox emulator definitely try this first!
Pretty good! I appreciate the free port. However, I placed Doom into the subdirectory, switched to it and ran the setup, after I did that when I try to start the game, it crashes. Other than that, I do appreciate this port. I am on an ASUS chromebook in case you plan on cheking this out. Thanks for the awesome port nonetheless!
This version of DOSBox has lots of features. However, it crashes very often, and the settings menu could be organized better. The picture in picture mode causes serious graphical glitches.
Could be slightly better. How about a Pentium 100 setting? Quake 1 is just a tad slow. Another option would be if a future variant has a faster video emulation than svga_s3. The same game compiled for Android runs at a stable 60fps and can be used with GearVR. On this, maybe 20 with dips below 10.
UPDATE: I don't have an sd card. I simply pointed to the Download folder and edited the conf accordingly. But now since the app exits w/o warning, and no log file exists that I can find, the only fix available is to uninstall and reinstall.
Gave it 3 stars cause it seems really unstable, seems well put together but was a bit surprised my phone could not run synducate without a lot of chop\studdering, that game ran like a wet dream in a 50mhz 486. Still pretty cool though will keep installed and watch progress.
Great implementation of DosBox. The keyboard is a bit small, but with purposeful pointing, the right characters are entered. Luigi the developer should keep writing good code like this application !
Fantastic app. Only problem with it is that it doesn't record game footage, I have tried the record function but when reviewing the footage it is just a blank screen with the audio playing
Excellent port, own keyboard interface, well made and thought out. Fiddly to get setup but this is fault of Google's infinite wisdom of locking down Android and not this app.
Works great! Sure it takes some research to get your games working, but there are a lot of nice tips and help on the internet! I use it to play some old DOS games and I love it! Thanks for this port!
Out of all dosbox versions on playstore, this is by far the best, very optimised, my phone stays cool compared to others, emulation is very smooth, try with windows 95 and you'll see what i saying.
Bad the first time I got it it was fine with it but i left and my phone was frozen and i had to restart it just to get it back to working i dont recommended you getting if you dont what to deal with that so it's so bad in my opinion but at least they tried.
I really like this app!! All the DOS games work fine: Wolf 3D, Spear, Doom, Doom2, Duke3d etc. But I have old scientific dos programs ( work also very good). Is it possible to run them using all the processor cores, i.e. maximum computing power? Thanks!
Overall a really well made app for dos. I had to play around with some settings for sound, but still five stars for ease of use and very well put together!
Its great, but on my specific device, i with the keyboard would be like an actual keyboard, instead of the row. Overall it was a good app.
Extremely well done, full PC keyboard inklusive. EDIT: In the control overlay, please include parentheses, not only brackets — make it easier to code in QBasic! :)
The best dosbox port ive seen. Ok for people who give bad reviews this a commandline emulator for a OS from the 90s It takes knowledge to start using apps. Also these apps or Games dont come free in the app download shareware apps for msdos. (I do not support piracy) Very good Job Luigi B.
Impressive, very complete UI and easy cnfiguration. Nice coding mate, keep it up !
It's an amazing app for using dos applications on your android, but one problem I have is that the application doesn't ask for file permissions which makes it impossible for me to mount anything. Edit: I realized that using the "file management" tab you can import and export files and folders, making mounting easier and also fixing the file permissions