Running DOS Programs on an Apple Silicon based Mac
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/11
I’m vintage, so I have some old machinery but also want to be able to run old software on newer hardware.
TL;DR: Since Apple Silicon (which is based on ARM) uses Intel Emulation for regular Mac binary programs, VMware Fusion# on Mac M* series cannot run Intel based operating systems, after some research there basically were these options:
- use VMware Fusion and run inside a Windows on ARM VM by using
- a dos emulator like DOSBox or DOSBox-X, since modern 64-bit Windows lacks the NTVDM:
Since virtual 8086 mode is not available on non-x86-based processors (more specifically, MIPS, DEC Alpha, and PowerPC) NTVDM is instead implemented as a full emulator in these versions of NT, using code licensed from Insignia’s SoftPC. Up to Windows NT 3.51, only 80286 emulation is available. With Windows NT 4.0, 486 emulation was added.
NTVDM is not included with 64-bit versions of Windows or ARM32 based versions such as Windows RT or Windows 10 IoT Core. The last version of Windows to include the component is Windows 10, as Windows 11 dropped support for 32-bit processors.
- an NTVDM replacement like NTVDMx64 or winevdm (sometimes calles otvdm)
- a dos emulator like DOSBox or DOSBox-X, since modern 64-bit Windows lacks the NTVDM:
- use a specific emulator like DOSBox-X directly on MacOS
- use a more generic emulator like QEMU based UTM
I have a VMware background on bare metal, Windows and MacOS, so I prefer it over Parallels
Links:
- [Wayback/Archive] Running DOS Programs on Mac With DOSBox (Macintosh OS X) – YouTube
- [Wayback/Archive] Apple Silicon M1: How to Run DOS Games and Apps | by Dmitry Yarygin | Medium
DOSBox-X. This is a fork of the DOSBox project and has some additional features bundled in there. Honestly, the main feature that I care about in DOSBox-X is the native binary compiled for Apple Silicon processors. Also, DOSBox-X is known to have a wider range of hardware emulation options.
- [Wayback/Archive] Does Dosbox work on m1 macs? : dosbox
Some forks of DOSBox run on M1 (ARM-based) Macbooks, including DOSBox-X.
…
M1 Macs run DOSBox, yes. I have used it extensively on my M1 MacBook Air, and on my M1 iMac, without any issues. I don’t believe it’s a native ARM app, but nevertheless it runs great.
To launch your DOS games, you will need to put them in a folder, and then mount that folder inside DOSBox . Then you can launch them from the command line. This works the same as on Intel Macs, and on Windows/Linux.
- [Wayback/Archive] Running DOS on a 64-bit OS: A brief guide • The Register
- [Wayback/Archive] DOSBox, an x86 emulator with DOS
- [Wayback/Archive] DOSBox-X – Accurate DOS emulation for Windows, Linux, macOS, and DOS
- [Wayback/Archive] vDos | Home (closed source; paid for commercial use)
- [Wayback/Archive] Windows 1.01 Apps on Windows 11! : Windows11
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – leecher1337/ntvdmx64: Run Microsoft Windows NTVDM (DOS) on 64bit Editions(which I later found out is scheduled to be mentioned into a future Moar FidoNet memories blog-post)
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – otya128/winevdm: 16-bit Windows (Windows 1.x, 2.x, 3.0, 3.1, etc.) on 64-bit Windows(which I later found out I already had made a note “Running 16-bit applications on Windows 10 through a VDM” of in 2020 after bumping into: [Wayback/Archive] Smaxx on Twitter: “Have you tried WineVDM? It’s an abstraction layer based on Wine that’s not running a full VM and I think one can also register it with Windows so it works just like on Windows 95 by registering itself as a handler for 16 bit executables.
github.com/otya128/winevdm“ and is also covered in the above mentioned Moar FidoNet memories) - [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – utmapp/UTM: Virtual machines for iOS and macOS
Queries:
- [Wayback/Archive] vdos emulator – Google Suche
- [Wayback/Archive] ntvdm on windows 11 – Sök på Google
- [Wayback/Archive] otvdm – Google Suche
--jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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