u/Extension_Emu_9825

Here’s a story: I’d long had the idea of ​​creating authentic DOS era UIs that would actually work properly in a browser. The stack was Rust + WebAssembly.

After finishing that, I wondered: what if I compiled the Rust code for DOS? And it actually worked...

Then I thought, well, there’s DOSBox-JS - why not just launch DOS in the browser example and run that same example inside DOS?

And that worked too...

BTW you can even play Duke over the network, though that’s just a side effect :)

Live demo: https://kirindenis.github.io/OWLOSUI/Examples/Web/JavaScript/05-Demo/

Source code: https://github.com/KirinDenis/OWLOSUI

I gave a lecture on how to write self-modifying code. It was over 15 minutes long :( so I'm providing a youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH9QQLRfbmY

In my opinion, self-modification is one of the most interesting features in systems programming.

The third generation of our 8086 combat flight sim has left the runway - forked from the finished OWL FLY II. We went through the feedback you sent us after the OWL FLY II release, and the request that came up most was support for the different displays of the era — so that is exactly where development began, and it is already flying: the game opens with a SELECT VIDEO SYSTEM menu, quizzes the actual hardware, and offers only what the machine really owns:

Hercules - 720×348 monochrome, the 6845 programmed by hand

CGA - 320×200, the classic cyan/magenta palette

EGA - 320×200 and 640×350, sixteen colours

MCGA - 320×200, 256 colours (colors? :) )

VGA - 320×200 in 256 colours, or 640×480 in 16 colours.

On every retro card the cockpit isn't a downscaled conversion - it is its own drawn artwork, redrawn the way 1988 drew instrument panels. Playable in the browser right now:

- COLOR (CGA EGA VGA): https://kirindenis.github.io/wire-city-2/owlfly3.html

- HERCULES (monochrome): https://kirindenis.github.io/wire-city-2/owlfly3h.html

THE SOURCE CODE:

https://github.com/KirinDenis/wire-city-2/tree/main/GAMES/OWLFLY3

OWL FLY II - a new flight simulator for DOS. Not a port and not a remaster -

written now, in 8086 assembly, for the machine you already have.

MIT, and it builds with the assembler that ships beside it. Nothing to buy,

nothing to install.

Fly it in your browser:

https://kirindenis.github.io/wire-city-2/owlfly2.html

And you are not alone up there. Multiplayer over IPX - in your browser, or on

your own DOS box, and everybody ends up in the same sky. You drop in over a

war that is already going on, and Enter puts you in a jet.

Source (MIT), assembler included:

https://github.com/.../wire-city-2/tree/main/GAMES/OWLFLY2