V86 - x86 virtualization in your browser, recompiling x86 to wasm on the fly

This package contains the following goodness

• VGA write modes 0, 1, 2, 3 with set/reset, planar rotation.
• VGA write using single dword to represent all 4 plane bytes.
• VGA read mode 1.
• Provides a workaround solution to issues #110 and #90 (sacrificing the performance and resolution of the vbe driver for normal vga)

Update: this PR now also includes:

• VGA chain odd/even and interleaved shift - implements modes 4h and 5h.
• VGA unchained, chain 4 256 color shift - implements modes 13h, mode X.
• VGA panning, page flipping, split screen.
• VGA palette redraws.

Demo

(This is the same video as the one for sb16 PR)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FSt14j7ayKnaT7AS8lF_4S1i4ZX9GlEk/view (the demo also contains code for 320x400 display mode that is not included with this PR)

Notes

• I'm curious to see if you like how the modes are implemented here. The calculations (bitmasks, ALU, etc.) got moved out from inside vga_memory_write_graphical_planar into their own, separate functions. This way, ~~the code looks more beautiful and satisfies my OCD~~ the circuitry intentions for each mode is much clearer. I'm not sure about the performance aspects though (I haven't profiled them yet).

Todo

• [x] Find a way to test out each mode. So far, I've only tested by booting up Windows 98 with VBE drivers removed, which worked well even before read mode 1 was implemented.
• [x] Test with Windows 98: windows, screen savers, paint, solitaire
• [x] Test some of Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book sample code
• [x] Test some DOS games on the write modes
• [x] Merge routines for mode 12h and 13h into single function.
• [x] Implement unchained 256 color shift
• [x] Implement odd/even chain and interleaved shift
• [x] Implement page flipping, panning, and split screens
• [x] Try out using linked lists to keep track of what pixels use what color, so when the palette changes the pixels can be updated
• [x] Fix the svga and text mode regressions on other OSes
• [x] Fix / optimize / consider keeping or removing the linked list.
• [x] Add new states to get_state and set_state functions.

It is clearly indicated in the readme -"No Android version seems to work, you still get a shell."- that Android doesn't run on v86, yet.

I wanted to submit a new issue for tracking the progress of running Android-x86 on v86, to share with each other

• why it doesn't run
• what can be done
• what is being worked on and by whom

This is especially interesting/exciting since if we manage that, we can run Android as a progressive webapp (PWA) on Mobile Safari on iPhone and iPad; not that it will be necessarily useful but surely fun! =)

I want to use the 9p filesystem and inject files into it. To inject files, I need to get the emulator instance. The Arch Linux demo is, AFAIK, the only one that features 9p support, however, it only works with the production build, which uses the closure compiler, which means I cannot get the emulator instance (since I don't know how it was mangled).

I can also build the image myself, maybe you have recommendations on how to do this? I imagine that I only need to build a new kernel, since I can use the userland from ttylinux or the linux26 image.

does not seem to move past this point, also broken when using latest sectorlisp.bin from https://github.com/jart/sectorlisp/blob/040852302c1bd37b16bfb8f123083b80c07fd0be/bin/sectorlisp.bin

SkiffOS is a configuration layering system for Buildroot.

It supports re-targeting system image configs to different hardware.

The linked configuration can be combined with other layers to deploy Docker and other Linux distributions to the v86 emulator.

The configuration fragments slim down the Buildroot and Kernel systems & switch off any unnecessary features.

https://github.com/skiffos/SkiffOS/tree/master/configs/browser/v86

Demo ISO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UFoUEt1CQrD8B4800ii9yehff68h9IPG/view

V86 is really awesome & I was really floored to see that everything could run in it with minimal adjustments.

The jor1k guys do this too: Run the CPU and devices code in a web worker, saving the time for rendering. For graphical modes, this requires a significant amount of data to be transferred between the worker and the window, so it might not actually be faster (needs to be researched).

This requires some significant changes in the code, including some sort of abstraction between the code that will run in the worker and the code that will run in the window.

Pretty cool hobby OS: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity

Requires hardware task switching support: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/7fc903b/Kernel/Scheduler.cpp#L574-L578

So I was in the middle of setting up Windows 2000, and before it could show drives to install Windows on, it got a BSoD. I retried, the same thing happened again. It has the error code "0x0000007B (0xF2463848,0xC0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)" and says "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE". The ISO I have has worked in the past for every emulator I've used, and I even tried retrying it via VirtualBox & QEMU, the ISO works. I decided to try setting up Windows 2K since the furthest edition of Windows uploaded for the public was Windows 98, and I wanted to try something new as well.

Network support would be a nice feature. The jor1k project is already running this successfully.

The emulated hardware could be ported from jsmodem (which is based on a UART, which we already have) or written from scratch. In the latter case, a network card that is supported by KolibriOS should be emulated.

Some feature ideas:

• Internet connection using websockets
• Local connection between two VM instances
• Connect on demand (i.e., start the websocket as soon as it's needed, not on boot)
• Rate limit the connection

I can't figure out how to play audio from within a Linux env. I have testing building a Debian install with sox installed (Build scripts:https://git.sr.ht/~hamner/copyleftmage.school) Running example: http://copyleftmage.school/v86/live/shell_full_boot.html Relevant setup data:

window.onload = function() {
    var emulator = new V86Starter({
        wasm_path: "../build/v86.wasm",
        memory_size: 512 * 1024 * 1024,
        vga_memory_size: 8 * 1024 * 1024,
        screen_container: document.getElementById("screen_container"),
        cmdline: "rw init=/bin/systemd root=host9p console=ttyS0 spectre_v2=off pti=off",
        bios: {
            url: "../bios/seabios.bin",
        },
        vga_bios: {
            url: "../bios/vgabios.bin",
        },
        filesystem: {
            baseurl: "/v86/output/images/debian-rootfs-flat/",
            basefs: "/v86/output/images/debian-fs.json",
        },
        autostart: true,
        bzimage_initrd_from_filesystem: true,
        cmdline: [
            "rw",
            "root=host9p rootfstype=9p rootflags=trans=virtio,cache=loose",
            "init=/usr/bin/init-openrc",
        ].join(" "),
    });

Running arecord -l shows no sounds cards found. Running beep plays a beep sound but also outputs no devices found. Options to change to tone don't work. My goal is the build this site out to be a teaching tool, and audio would be a big help.

So im trying to basically make a website that only has windows 98 for my midterm school project. I just dont understand how to first off get the files to work (without hosting them) and second how i would make it so that on startup it loads the windows 98 image. essentially im just wondering how to only take the windows 98 portion of this or at the very least get everything to work.

Last serial output is:

Haiku revision: hrev56578+59, debug level: 1
CPU: no microcode provided
reserve_io_interrupt_vectors: reserved 2 vectors starting from 98
CPU 0: type 0 family 15 extended_family 0 model 6 extended_model 0 stepping 3, string 'GenuineIntel'
No CPU topology information available.
CPU 0: apic id 0, package 0, core 0, smt 0
CPU 0: features: fpu pse tsc msr pae cx8 sep pge cmov mmx fxsr sse sse2 popcnt rdrnd hypervisor erms 
CPU 0: patch_level 0
CPU: using TSC frequency from CPUID
reserve_io_interrupt_vectors: reserved 16 vectors starting from 0
using 32 bit paging (PAE not needed)
mark_page_range_in_use(0x0, 0x100): start page is before free list
mark_page_range_in_use(0x0, 0xa0): start page is before free list

Not an issue, just a small video to see how well Doom (no sound) runs on v86:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/829885/210173802-6cbe43b3-ebab-4a27-a8c6-db01b5d41e45.mp4

This is the 64MB hard disk with a very reduced FiwixOS 3.2 system: 64M.img.zip [^1]

user: root
pass: root

[^1]: updated on 2-Jan-2023 - fixed a segfault when exiting Doom.

I tested the antiX distro on copy v86, and it seems to work very well. It is an established lightweight distro based on Debian and comes in 32 and 64-bit versions. The "base" version seems to have reasonable functionality for use on copy v86. Would be nice if it was demo version so that users could then select antiX and install a few additional packages and then "save state" to be able to rapidly restart work in that distro in their browser.

It would then be additionally useful if that demo antiX browser would be able to access the user's local filesystem (similar to how the ArchLinux demo distro does).

Thanks for considering this request.

I request a feature for the node.js version for the modified hdd data to be able to save+load, that is store, on the physical maschine as a file. Is this possible to implement? Thank you.