DOS ain't dead - JLM AHCICD: new (preliminary) version

Japheth

Germany (South),
06.04.2026, 22:07
(edited by Japheth, 07.04.2026, 21:17)

JLM AHCICD: new (preliminary) version (Announce)

Hello,

JLM AHCICD ( CD ROM driver for AHCI ATAPI devices ) got an update - it does now support "raw mode" reads.

This allows to "play" CDs in DOS with drives that have no (analog?) cable connection between the CD-ROM device and the sound "card". The CPU will read the PCM data and copy it to the sound card's buffer.

For testing, there's a simple CD player added - for (real and emulated) Sound Blaster 16 only. It's a text mode program, one can play either the whole CD or a specific track.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VhC6a_1EBuAFfK940p5jYTyoFBJ06NA1/view?usp=drive_link

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MS-DOS forever!

Japheth

Germany (South),
12.04.2026, 22:45

@ Japheth

QEMU fails with (digital) Audio-CD support - Alternatives?

Post reply

While the digital Audio-CD player ( I call it SB16CDr ) works pretty well on real machines ( depends a bit on the CD/DVD drive, old ones from the 1990s may reveal various problems ), there's a severe problem with Qemu: it's apparently unable to provide support for raw mode reads on - real - CD drives.

Do better options exist?

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MS-DOS forever!

FFK

13.04.2026, 03:38

@ Japheth

QEMU fails with (digital) Audio-CD support - Alternatives?

Post reply

> While the digital Audio-CD player ( I call it SB16CDr ) works pretty well
> on real machines ( depends a bit on the CD/DVD drive, old ones from the
> 1990s may reveal various problems ), there's a severe problem with Qemu:
> it's apparently unable to provide support for raw mode reads on - real - CD
> drives.
>
> Do better options exist?

I also had a very poor SB16 emulation on both VirtualBox (no sound at all) or PCEm (very poor sound quality)
You can try to use use either DosBox-X or DosBox-Staging which emulate almost well SB16, but I'm not sure if they provide support of CD raw mode.

Japheth

Germany (South),
16.04.2026, 16:06

@ FFK

QEMU fails with (digital) Audio-CD support - Alternatives?

Post reply

> I also had a very poor SB16 emulation on both VirtualBox (no sound at all)
> or PCEm (very poor sound quality)

Thanks for the info, but my question wasn't about the quality of the SB emulation. Btw, VirtualBox's SB emulation works, but IIRC you must not use the ICH9 machine type.

> You can try to use use either DosBox-X or DosBox-Staging which emulate
> almost well SB16, but I'm not sure if they provide support of CD raw mode.

AFAICS no. They support raw reads via "cue sheets" and the IMGMOUNT cmd, but no access to any real device - much alike 86box. DosEmu2 also fails...

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MS-DOS forever!