Limiting load of certain processes

[Jan Kandziora <jjj@gmx.de>]

Dear all,

I like to use an old DOS/Clipper application through DOSEMU on a Linux
application server in a hotel. It works, but (as usual with DOS), it causes
a processor load of 100% in certain situations, while just waiting for user
interaction.

That's kind of stupid, as power saving is heavily disturbed by such a
program and other applications loose some responsiveness. I asked the DOSEMU 
crowd how to address this problem and got the following answers:

* "nice" the process to address the latter problem (ok, that's obvious), but
  the load of "1" is still there.
* Configure dosemu that way the program is suspended if the dosemu window is
  iconified, but users are lazy.
* And I learned there's a "tamedos" DOS application which works a little
  (tears down CPU usage to 50%), but that's not enough in my view.

All that is not really great, I think. My question now is: Is there already
a way to advise the linux scheduler to limit CPU usage of certain
processes? Or do I have to develop such a thing myself?

Any better ideas?

Kind regards

        Jan