Category Archives: VirtualBox

IBM OS/2 1.0 in a VM

As previously mentioned, IBM’s OS/2 1.0 and 1.1 is extra unfriendly to modern hypervisors. To recap, there is a curious difference between IBM’s and Microsoft’s kernels in OS/2 1.0/1.1 with regard to mode switching. For reasons that aren’t very clear, … Continue reading

Posted in IBM, Microsoft, OS/2, VirtualBox, Virtualization | 36 Comments

Solaris 2.5.1 and 2.6 crashes on modern Intel CPUs

I recently found that Solaris 2.6 and 2.5.1 does not work when run in a VM on a modern Intel CPU (Sandy Bridge generation Core i7), or to be exact fails most of the time (about nine times out of … Continue reading

Posted in Solaris, VirtualBox, Virtualization, x86 | 27 Comments

Video trouble with Solaris 10 GA and U1

The initial (GA) release of Solaris 10 from 2005 and the first update (Solaris 10 1/06) both have an interesting bug which causes trouble when installing those specific versions on VirtualBox and quite likely also on some mildly unusual hardware. The … Continue reading

Posted in Solaris, VirtualBox | Leave a comment

NT video miniport HD

The video miniport driver for VirtualBox has been updated. The miniport now supports a much broader range of resolutions, up to 1920×1200. Color depths of 32, 24, 16, 15, and 8 bits per pixel are supported for all resolutions, although … Continue reading

Posted in NT, VirtualBox | 23 Comments

Kernel Debugging with VirtualBox

Virtualization readily lends itself to debugging of low-level code that is difficult to analyze in conventional environments. It is also convenient for kernel debugging which would otherwise require two separate systems or at least a separate serial terminal. OS/2 Setting … Continue reading

Posted in Development, OS/2, VirtualBox | 4 Comments

Simple Windows NT video miniport for VirtualBox

A few months ago, I developed a trivial video miniport for use in Windows NT virtual machines. The primary goal was to improve display speed and get past the 800×600, 16 color display mode which is the maximum Windows NT … Continue reading

Posted in NT, VirtualBox | 26 Comments

Running 1-2-3 R3 in a VM

I recently tried to install the infamous Lotus 1-2-3 Release 3 from 1989 in a VM. The program disks included both DOS and OS/2 executables, and both were failing. The DOS version stopped with “Cannot initialize system driver” immediately after … Continue reading

Posted in DOS, PC history, VirtualBox | 3 Comments

Need for Speed SE video glitch

When attempting to play the classic racing game Need for Speed SE in a virtualized environment (VirtualBox), I was dismayed to discover that all the in-game videos were completely garbled. Curiously, the introductory video played when the game is first … Continue reading

Posted in DOS, VirtualBox | 7 Comments

Xenix 286 in a VM

The fixes which were included in VirtualBox 4.0.8 happen to help not only OS/2 1.x but also Xenix. The 386 versions of Xenix 2.3.x (not necessarily older versions!) should install in a VM without trouble, but the 286 versions are … Continue reading

Posted in VirtualBox, Xenix | 10 Comments

Installing OS/2 1.x in a VirtualBox VM

Installing 16-bit OS/2 in a virtual machine ranges between “tricky” and “impossible”, depending on the version of OS/2 and virtualization software used. In VirtualBox 4.0.8, things have moved further away from “impossible” and closer towards merely “tricky”. Version 4.0.8 fixed problems with floppy … Continue reading

Posted in OS/2, VirtualBox | 29 Comments