“Do you rely on legacy DOS apps. that are critical to the survival of your business? Me neither – I just want to play Frogger again… One way of running those old favourites under Linux is to use the DOSBox software package.” Read the tutorial here.
DOSBox – A DOS Emulator
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Its a great and very simple program.
I was so happy when I discovered I could play F29 Retaliator again
It is a it slow though so the more “newer” dos games need a faster machine to run them on. Especially DPMI ones at this stage. Unfortunatley for me I downloaded a CVS version the other day that had a few bugs. Need a new CVS version or a pure 0.60 version.
Currently they have packages/source for
Linux
BeOS
FreeBSD
Windows
I uninstalled FreeDOS from my system because I spent all day in it playing Transport Tycoon Deluxe (Patch 2.0) and Ultimate Soccer Manager 2. However since the 0.60 port to BeOS, USM2 is somewhat playable and I’m now spending all day playing USM2 in a window in BeOS – damn you DOSBox! :-p
Being addicted to those ‘crappy’ old DOS games, I am always on the lookout for things like this. I’ve used VDMSound to make DOS games enjoyable on Win2k boxes, but if DOSBox lets me play ‘Quest for Glory’ and ‘UA’ on BSD, then I’d be pretty happy.
Would be nice if they got Discworld and Discworld 2 working on it. The only DOS games I miss. Both crash randomly during “movies”, but the gameplay parts work fine as far as I can see. Oh and only the Discworld 2 rip works (from underdogs) but my 2CD official version won’t run. (The install was done with Wine in case you’re wondering.)
…just for the people willing to run old DOS apps (if any
).
DOSbox is mainly intended to run games and developers concentrate in features useful to games.
Anyway DOSbox is GREAT and is something that would have to be invented if it hasn’t
I provide for my small community CVS builds for Win32, at this place: http://mypixels.dk/forums
It’s indeed a great application, limited support for Protected Mode games 🙂
Cheers
rjpa
[i]
It is a it slow though so the more “newer” dos games need a faster machine to run them on. Especially DPMI ones at this stage. Unfortunatley for me I downloaded a CVS version the other day that had a few bugs. Need a new CVS version or a pure 0.60 version.
Currently they have packages/source for
Linux
BeOS
FreeBSD
Windows
[i]
And MacOS X. There is also a “Launcher” application available (which comes with a precompiled version of DOSBox), look at http://www.ixitixel.privat.t-online.de/
Need a new CVS version or a pure 0.60 version.
DOSBox 0.60 was released on Wednesday, October 15th, 2003.
What’s up, Richard!
The first thing I did when I heard about the 0.60 release of DosBox was play Quest for Glory 4 all the way through. I did this when I was supposed to have been studying for finals. I regret nothing!
in ‘ufo2: x-com – terror from the deep’, ctrl+c triggers a nice cheat under pure dos: you can skip the battles.
that doesn’t work yet with dosbox, but apart from that this ‘protected mode’ game works like a charm ( 1ghz+ cpu )…
The 0.60 version would be sure to run all my games. So would a CVS version I just got a new CVS version and it seems to run civilization fine now as well as XCOM-UFO so it is good.
The developers have asked people to check out dosbox with applications other than games. But most people do not need such functionality so they probably use VMware or dosemu.
What about the Files=n and bufers=n command?
It work?
I am surprised how many QfG fans there are here already! I couldn’t even play through QfG 4 all the way in MS-DOS or any version of Windows without having it crash. Do you still have to do the usually suggested workarounds, or were those issues with the original DOS4GW stuff? I wish US Navy Fighters was somewhere on that list. The Windows95 version crashed on every machine I tried it with, and the DOS version, which worked on our 486, was the only game my dad would play. I think it had a feature for network play… if it does, I can see my dad retiring pretty early!!
What about the Files=n and bufers=n command?
It work?
You can’t set them right now. Anyway 99% of the games don’t seem to have problems with the default value whatever it is.
How well does QfG4 work? Was it the CD or floppy version? The CD version is amazing; it has the best voice acting I’ve ever heard in a game.
Guess you haven’t played PS:T then.
What’s PS:T ?
After a very short Google search I found my all time favourite dos shareware game – Bolo Ball:
http://www.sharewarejunkies.com/9zwd9/bolo_ball.htm
If I can run this old game in DOSBox under FreeBSD, I’ll be one happy geek.
I loved the Quest for Glory series. (stating with “Hero’s Quest”) Well except the final one… Multi player was never finnished, game play was drasticly diferant….
So with this new BOXbox thing will I be able to play them all over again on my Linux box? Neet!
Master of Orion 1..
“Do you rely on legacy DOS apps. that are critical to the survival of your business?”
The funny thing is in this day and age, there are plenty of companies that use DOS programs. There’s a company on the other side of town that runs it’s POS in a DOS window under NT.
I am running DR-DOS 7 under dosemu – as it will run Wordperfect for DOS 5.1. My wife is stuck in the DOS age and refuses to learn to use GUI based wordprocessing software. I use DR-DOS as it can handle the WP5.1 binaries, FreeDOS can’t which I think is something to do with them being compressed executables.
So has anyone got WP5.1 running on DOSbox, as I might want to move over to it when I upgrade my Mandrake 9.1.
I don’t need printer support as I currently have WP5.1 set up to print PS to file and then to use gv in Linux to preview and print.
I know that software that powers many soopermarkets cash desks also runs DOS and DOS apps.
I have a copy of the original, back when it was called “Hero’s Quest.” It came in the form of ten 5.25 floppies! I don’t even have a working drive for those anymore >8}
It’s been a long day
Speed is my only complaint, *sniff*. It’s relatevely quite slow. OTOH it’s very nice to have even on Windows.
Some games run in ScummVM too, and some are even ported like FreeCraft, FreeCNC, FreeCIV, and much more…
My uncle had the Hero Quest diskettes (5.25″ ones). I couldn’t remember the name of the game, but when I saw the CD compilation of all 4 original games, I had to get it. I only recognized the graphics.
Now, I’ve got that same CD running QfG1 on my Mac! Speed’s good with frameskipping set to 3 and CPU cycles set to 1500. I had to copy the folder over to the hard drive to get decent performance, though.
Well I tested it very little time but everything seemed to be working fine. And you don’t need two things
(dosemu+drdos)
I tried printing to a ps file and worked too so this may be an option for you.
I agree. Heros Quest is the best series ever.
I was also thinking about using DOSBox to play the QfG games, but I didn’t know they were this popular. Judging from the replies in this thread it seems that they are the main reason for people’s interest in DOSBox!
“I was also thinking about using DOSBox to play the QfG games, but I didn’t know they were this popular. Judging from the replies in this thread it seems that they are the main reason for people’s interest in DOSBox!”
You have no idea… it certainly is mine…