Writing emulators has always fascinated me. Now I want to write an emulator for an IBM PC and run MS-DOS on it (I've got the floppy image files).

I have good experience in C++ and C and basic knowledge of assembler and the architecture of a CPU. I also know that there are thousands of emulators out there doing exactly what I want to do, but I'd be doing this for pure joy only.

• How much work do I have to expect? (If my goal is to boot DOS and create a text file with it, all emulated)

• What CPU should I emulate ? Where can I find documentation on how the machine code is organized and which opcodes mean what, so I can unpack and execute them correctly with my emulator?

• Does MS-DOS still run on the newest generations of processors? Would it theoretically be able to natively run on a 64-bit AMD Phenom 2 processor w/ a modern mainboard, HDD, RAM, etc.?

• What else, besides emulating the CPU, could be an important factor (in terms of difficulty)? I would only aim for outputting / inputting text to the system via the host system's console, no sound or other more advanced IO etc.

• Have you written an emulator yet? What was your first one for? How hard was it? Do you have any special tips for me?

Thanks in advance