Can I run assembly program that switches to protected mode in dosbox?

Question

We are studying an assembly program that switches an 386 processor from real mode to protected mode, and then back to real mode. The program is compiled using TASM.

Because this program needs to do some privileged operations, and it needs to start in real mode, we need to run it from DOS. For this we're told to bring floppy disks so we can boot DOS on the university's computers.

I'm wondering if Dosbox can be used instead. But it needs to faithfully emulate a I386 in protected mode as well as in real mode, and I'm not sure if it does that.

Answer 1

Yes, you can run protected-mode code in DosBox. I cannot guarantee you that there are no bugs in DosBox's CPU emulation code and that you won't hit any of them, but DosBox does support protected mode. I can run DPMI programs in it and small non-DPMI protected mode programs as well.