[CentOS] slightly off topic - virtual PC options

I have a this new AMD X2 4800+ x86_64 box that works great and runs centos 4.3 x86_64 like a champ.

I have 4 old machines running slackware, redhat 7.3 and redhat 9 and centos 4.3 i386. I would like to take the image of the disk (or something else equivalent) and run some kind of i386 emulation on the X2 box so I can run those old images when I need to and scrap the 4 old boxes.

Heat and noise be gone!

I have see Xen, qemu, user mode linux, bochs etc...

Have others tried to do something like I am trying, take images from older machines and run then on NEW iron? Are there suggested steps somewhere that I have not found?

I have tried qemu but I cant boot the image.

Just wondering if I am going about this is the right fashion?

Thanks,

Jerry