I wouldn't mind some clearer instructions than I've been able to pick up in this thread and the links from it so far.

This is my understanding to date (please supplement / correct where wrong!):

- DOSBOX provides an emulated PC virtual machine with an Intel processor (8086? 80286? 80386?), SiS video chipset, SB16 sound card and other common devices, so should be capable of running any Microsoft o/s that would run on that machine, e.g., DOS, Win 3.1, Win 9x. There seems to be some doubt about Win98?

- Performance reports range from poor to acceptable, depending on who's posting. The difference may be how the configuration file dosbox.conf file is optimized for the platform and the applications. A couple of people have posted their dosbox.conf, and there's one at the above-referenced site, but don't know which one is "best" for the N800. Maybe one has to be prepared to tune for specific applications? Where are the parameter descriptions and suggestions on how to tune?

- We can download DOSBOX for Maemo from here: http://pupnik.de/dosbox.html. Should we use the "N800/N810 optimized testing build", which I assume is a variant of DOSBOX 0.72? Or dosbox_0.72-0.1_armel.deb? Or a different version?

- For some reason the gz contains just a file called Dosbox which does not appear to be an executable program, so you have to go to shell root mode and mark it executable yourself after copying to the device (why????). Is that still true if you install the .deb version? May need some libraries, which I think can be found at the above-referenced site? Do these need to be installed manually? In red pill mode?

- You have to run DOSBOX from a shell command line (in root mode? or not?). The dosbox.conf file you want to use has to be in the current directory.

- DOSBOX doesn't access the N800s built-in keyboard popup, so you have to install the "xkbd virtual keyboard" as well, or have a bluetooth keyboard. You need to start xkbd at the same time as dosbox on the same command line. There's a mapper.txt (key mapping file) - how is it used? Where does it go? Is it part of xkbd or not?

- DOSBOX doesn't show up in the N800s task list, so if you minimize the window it gets lost, and you have to find the process ID to kill it. (How do you exit cleanly? Is there any other way to get rid of it?)

- Before you try installing a Windows o/s, DOSBOX starts out with ...? Nothing? A version of DOS? You have to install Windows from your own install disks before you can use it.

- The main setup difficulty is apparently to create a bootable disk image from which you can run the Windows setup within DOSBOX. Many of the instructions deal with this, depending on whether you are starting from a CDROM or floppy disks. Some have suggested that it may be easier to install the Windows version of DOSBOX on your PC, install the operating system image there, then transfer the file to your N800 (how? what file? or is it a directory of files?)

- From within DOSBOX you can use the Mount command to mount directories from the N800 file system (including SD cards) as virtual drives.