Is this even possible?

[miss_yt]

As you may remember, I'm planning to get a MacBook Pro after this holiday season, partly to prepare for grad school and also because my current laptop is approaching the end of its natural life span (it's still functional, though, and my mother will get it). The reason I'm going for a Mac, rather than some form of PC, is that the new Macs can run Windows, and, thus, Windows games. For me, being able to play games on my computer is very important.

However, after some consideration (and reading on Slashdot), I've come to the conclusion that I would rather not put Windows on my new computer if I don't have to. That is, if there's a way to make it run Windows or old DOS games without the actual Windows, I would like to know what it is. Isn't there some kind of emulator for Macs that will run PC programs? Or is there some Linux thing that will do it?

Speaking of that, maybe I could put Linux on my new computer instead (or also, how about that?) Since it has Boot Camp, and I won't already have a bunch of valuable data on it when I first get it, I can afford to experiment. Although I would need to do some research on the available distros first. I think if I'm going into information science, having Linux and knowing how it works would be a good idea.

Comments

[batshua]

If you only want DOS games, there's DOSbox.

[miss-yt.livejournal.com]

I haven't had good luck with DOSbox. This little emulator called VDMSound worked a lot better - it was actually designed to address the sound driver issues that newer machines have with old games, and it does that pretty well (it is also easier to use than DOSbox).

[batshua]

1. Have you tried the latest version of DOSbox? They do update it pretty often.

2. I've not heard of VDMSound. I'll try it out.

3. There are wrappers for DOSbox that mean you don't need to work the command line so much to make the games run. Not sure if this is enough to redeem it for you, though.