js-dos VS xterm.js

Funny timing. I actually just built an in-house server this past Friday to host the original Oregon Trail using js-dos because I don't like poking holes in the content filter for sites like archive.org. I didn't worry too much about copyright, as I assumed it was abandonware at this point.

Thanks glad you liked it! It's actually not a port but is running on DOS via https://js-dos.com/, same as Doom and Jazz Jackrabbit. I actually have my 8 favorite Shareware games on my website which can all be played.

https://dustinbrett.com/?app=FileExplorer&url=/Users/Public/...

Maybe something like https://js-dos.com/ for dos and https://www.emulatorjs.com/ for old game consoles?

DOS Emulation via js-dos

Adding emulators is something I always wanted to do and I have plans to add more in 2022. For 2021 I was able to add Virtual x86 (.img/.iso), BoxedWine (.exe/.zip), JS-DOS (.exe/.zip) & Ruffle (.swf/.spl). Most of these emulators utilize WebAssembly to run non-JS code.

It can indeed run some real windows programs via BoxedWine. I've set it up so you can double click an .exe and it will automatically try and run it, although typically if it needs support dll's then they are all in a zip. For example the zip file for Notepad++ 32-bit x86 can directly run in BoxedWine. You just drag the zip file on, right click and select run in BoxedWine. It can also run DOS apps/games via JS-DOS and has similar mappings for exe/zip. Both emulators make use of WASM as do several other apps, such as the x86 emulator shown in the demo video. My main "OS" is only JS/HTML/CSS written in TypeScript with React/Styled Components.

Here is a screenshot: https://github.com/xtermjs/xterm.js/pull/4519#issue-17129655...

I'm on the VS Code team and maintain xterm.js which is what Hyper's frontend is based on. There are actually multiple developments happening in this area.

First, there's a contribution from the author of DomTerm which adds grapheme cluster support to xterm.js, which will correctly merge and size things like emoji that are called out in the post. This is currently based on Unicode 15. See https://github.com/xtermjs/xterm.js/pull/4519

Second, while Windows Terminal does seem to work with emoji sometimes, it doesn't all the time. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it may only work on Windows ptys, not in WSL for example. Last time I spoke with the team they said they're working on a rewrite which could lead to proper emoji support.

Ooh, I lack the time to play with this, but I think someone could compile the lib to WebAssembly and tie it in to https://xtermjs.org/

Then you could have a web page with static DOM elements that do this effect!

xterm is a JavaScript library that provides a web-based terminal emulator with ANSI escape sequences, Unicode characters, and other features. It is easy to use and customize, making it a popular choice for adding a terminal interface to web applications.

Setting scrollback to infinite? #518

The simpler path would be starting the WASM port using Emacs character mode running alongside an in-browser terminal emulator such as XTerm.js.