Well, there is a rather straightforward explanation: virtualization extensions did not exist, and in fact would not exist for another 5 years at least. Actuall

Well, there is a rather straightforward explanation: virtualization extensions did not exist, and in fact would not exist for another 5 years at least. Actually, now that I think of it, having KVM capable of running real mode DOS is a rather recent development. Looking at you, AMD, but even early Intel VT-x didn't get it right until 2010ish (Westmere). Anyway, dosemu2 does exactly that (use KVM to run a lightweight kernel that just enters vm86).