Could someone recommend me a DOS emulator with a good debugger?

Requirements:
* Must be able to run games from the late 1980s
* Must run (and be compilable) under linux and be open source
* Must have a debugger
* Debugger must have a disassembler and a memory inspector
* Debugger must allow setting breakpoints that will pause execution when a memory location is read

* (Note that DOSBox fails this last requirement; heavy debug builds support breakpoint on write, but not on read, as far as I can tell.)

So, any recommendations?

I'll assume you never used debug.com? (Though that certainly won't be helpful if there's anything graphical... nor for EXE files)

The programs I'm interested on running in the debugger are commercially released DOS games. I *have* used debug.com, but that's completely unsuitable for this use.

OH FFS

Oh? Other than being a 16bit debugger it does the job.

On the other hand there WAS an updated one from ProgrammersHeaven some years back that added in more opcodes and 32bit decoding. But this was some time ago, i don't remember if it is even there anymore.

Hmmm i found a site sporting the name, but it looks more a forum and less a fileshare site...

It looks like some patches enable or fix "memory read" breakpoints in the DOSBox debugger. I found this thread: "Somewhere in the forum someone mentioned he would like a breakpoint on memory read. The first patch does just that." by ninjalj in 2007. Someone, "wd", claiming to be the DOSBox author appeared to like the patches.

If you're able to ask there, I'm sure they have more ideas. It seems like DOSBox is already 90% of the solution, aside from memory read breakpoints, which I'd think would be a quick patch, or a bug that they don't work.

http://bochs.sourceforge.net
Bochs was slow, but should be fast enough to play games from 1980s.

or in an uber-fast emulator - dosemu2 https://github.com/dosemu2/dosemu2

qemu supports "remote" gdb. Not geared specifically towards DOS, though.

An external debugger and memory watch out of the question?

I've got an idea. Ask Kris, AKA Gemini. He probably has an idea.

Have you tried dosbox itself with Turbo Debugger (from Borland) + hiew?

Probably it would've been a good idea to ask at VOGONS rather than here to begin with.

Much the same result probably; one would have thought overlap there and here.

the volume might be king here, but there is the much more dedicated community obviously. but doesn't hurt to try ofc.