virtual.
$ virtual --boot win98.vm --hw pentium133 --net isolated
Virtual machines for today and for back then: current Windows, Linux and macOS guests run at native speed through hardware virtualization — old systems from DOS to Windows 95 to Mac OS 9 get the hardware of their era rebuilt, isolated from the rest of your computer — and game consoles from the NES to the Dreamcast run through emulator cores alongside. Snapshots, shared folders, every common disk format. No account, no telemetry. Native for macOS, Windows and Linux.
In development — first beta to follow
virtual is being built right now: virtualization of current guests first, with snapshots, shared folders, clipboard and networking — the emulation engine with period machine profiles, floppy and CD images right behind it. The first beta for macOS, Windows and Linux ships with signed in-app updates.
Downloads go live as soon as the first beta passes our own test.
Two engines, one window
// virtualize what the CPU can run — emulate what it no longer knows
Current operating systems run fastest when the processor executes them directly. Old operating systems fail at exactly that: they expect a Pentium with an ISA bus, a sound card on a fixed port and a graphics card without a driver model — and trip over processors a thousand times faster than anything they know. So virtual runs on two tracks, without you having to pick one.
// virtualization
Current guests at native speed
Windows 10 and 11, Linux distributions, the BSDs and, on Apple Silicon, macOS as a guest — through the host’s hardware virtualization, with multiple cores, accelerated graphics, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot where the guest demands it. ARM guests run natively on ARM machines, x86 guests on Intel and AMD.
// emulation
Old guests on the hardware of their time
CPU, chipset, bus, sound and graphics card are reproduced cycle-accurately — including a throttled clock so Windows 95 doesn’t choke on its timer, and a floppy drive, because the installation came on 13 disks. Also for architectures the host doesn’t have at all: 68k, PowerPC, MIPS, RISC-V.
// machine profiles
Ready-made machines instead of settings lists
A profile describes a complete computer: “PC 1996 — Pentium 133, 32 MB, Sound Blaster 16, S3 graphics, CD-ROM” or “Mac 1994 — 68040, 36 MB, 640×480 in 256 colors”. Pick the operating system, confirm the profile, install — without knowing which IRQ a sound card wanted back then.
// as always from LAN-SOLO
Local & honest
Every machine is a folder: configuration as readable JSON, disk as a file, snapshots next to it. Copy it, back it up, move it to another computer — done. No account, no telemetry, no service phoning home at launch.
// And to keep it honest: virtualizing, emulating, snapshots, folders and networking stay free — for good. The full hardware library, snapshot trees, headless operation and automation are the nested plan: €12 a year.
Guests
// what’s on the list — and what’s still coming
The list grows with every beta. What’s listed here runs in the target release either virtualized or on a ready-made machine profile — operating system images, licenses and ROMs are yours to bring.
// current
Virtualized
- Windows 10 / 11
- Windows 11 ARM
- Linux (all major distributions)
- macOS (guest on Apple Silicon)
- FreeBSD / OpenBSD / NetBSD
- Windows Server
- Haiku
- ReactOS
// classic x86
Emulated — PC era
- MS-DOS / FreeDOS
- Windows 3.1
- Windows 95 / 98 / ME
- Windows NT 4 / 2000 / XP
- OS/2 Warp
- BeOS
- NeXTSTEP / OpenStep
- QNX
- Solaris x86
- Minix
- early Linux kernels (1.x / 2.x)
// other architectures
Emulated — beyond x86
- Mac OS 7 – 9 (68k / PowerPC)
- A/UX
- NeXTSTEP 68k
- Plan 9
- Linux / BSD for ARM, RISC-V, MIPS, PowerPC
- AmigaOS (your own Kickstart ROM, later)
- RISC OS (later)
- exotics via your own machine profile
// consoles
Emulated — consoles & handhelds
- NES / Famicom
- Super Nintendo
- Game Boy / Color / Advance
- Master System / Mega Drive / Mega-CD
- PC Engine
- Nintendo 64
- PlayStation
- PSP
- Nintendo DS
- Saturn
- Dreamcast
- Neo Geo / arcade
- Atari 2600
- MSX
// Consoles run through emulator cores as their own machine class: insert the game, save states become snapshots. Missing a system? A machine profile is a JSON file — whoever knows the hardware describes it, and everyone else gets it with the next update.
Features
// planned for version 1.0
Snapshots & clones
Freeze the state before you try something — and be back in seconds if it went wrong. With nested as a tree: several branches from one state, named and annotated. Linked clones share the base disk, so ten test machines don’t cost ten times the space.
Seamless day to day
Shared folders with the host, clipboard in both directions, files dragged straight into the guest window, USB devices passed through, HiDPI scaling, audio and printers. With nested, guest programs run as their own windows on your desktop, as if they belonged there.
Hardware librarynested
Chipsets from the 386 to the Pentium III, ISA and PCI sound cards with OPL synthesis, VGA, VESA and early 3D accelerators, 5¼ and 3½ inch floppy drives, SCSI and IDE controllers — individually selectable, with a clock dial for games that depend on speed. Free ships the standard profiles, nested the whole library.
Safely isolated
Old systems haven’t seen updates in decades. So virtual starts them with no network by default, read-only folders and a throwaway snapshot that expires on shutdown. If you need a network, you get an isolated guest network with a proxy to the host — or, deliberately, NAT and bridged. Encrypted machines and TPM 2.0 are part of it.
Formats & import
Disks as VMDK, VHDX, QCOW2, VDI or raw image — open, convert, export. Import OVF and OVA packages, insert floppy and CD images as IMG, ISO and BIN/CUE, read physical media directly. A machine that ran elsewhere keeps running here.
Headless & automationnested
Start machines without a window and drive them from the command line: create, clone, start, snapshot, stop — scriptable in any shell, output as JSON. Nested virtualization for containers and hypervisors inside the guest, port forwarding, serial console and access via SSH or VNC.
Pricing
// Free virtualizes and emulates — nested is the workshop
Free
For anyone who needs a second system — today’s or yesterday’s
- Virtualization of current guests with multiple cores and accelerated graphics
- Emulation of old guests with the standard machine profiles
- Consoles and handhelds through emulator cores — save states as snapshots
- Linear snapshots, throwaway mode, encrypted machines
- Shared folders, clipboard, drag and drop, USB
- Isolated guest network, NAT and bridged
- Every common disk, floppy and CD format, OVF/OVA import
- Native for macOS, Windows and Linux — no account, no telemetry
nested
For the workshop, the lab and the collection — everything that goes deeper
- Everything in Free
- Full hardware library: chipsets, sound and graphics cards individually, clock dial
- Snapshot trees with branches and linked clones
- Guest programs as their own windows on the desktop
- Headless operation, command line with JSON output, scripting
- Nested virtualization, port forwarding, serial console, SSH/VNC
- Share and import your own machine profiles
Free stays free — for good, no strings attached. virtual nested: €12 a year, that’s €1 a month. Incl. VAT, billed yearly, cancel anytime.
// Honest as always: emulation is slower than virtualization — for a Windows 98, today’s computers have speed to spare, while a current x86 Windows on Apple Silicon will be no fun. Operating systems, licenses, games and ROM or BIOS images are yours to bring; virtual ships none and links to no sources. And not every machine can be rebuilt: where the hardware was never documented, even the best profile has nothing to stand on.