A Glimpse into OS/2's Built-in Virtualization

This blog post explores the surprisingly advanced built-in virtualization capabilities of OS/2 2.1 from 1993. The author demonstrates OS/2's ability to load and execute disk images, much like modern hypervisors, by creating a simple VGA mode program and running it in DOSBox, QEMU, and OS/2's own virtual environment. OS/2 can even run images that aren't true bootable DOS floppies, using VMDISK to create an image file and running it in fullscreen or windowed mode within OS/2. This functionality, remarkable for 1993, is essentially a built-in QEMU, prompting the author to consider the further potential of OS/2's virtualization features.