Or just play them all for free here: https://the-eye.eu/public/Games/eXo/eXoDOS_v3.11/eXoDOSRPG/
Includes a front end, browsable by genre, publisher, developer, release year, etc.. Includes screen shots, cover scans, and manuals. And everything is already setup to run.
This is my 486 DX2 66 MHz with 20MB RAM, Cirrus GD5428 1MB and SB16. Got this computer not that long ago but it means much to me because my first computer had the same processor. I've been mostly playing Blackthorne, Sim Farm and recently began on Police Quest Open Season (ofc I got stuck almost immediately but i'm not going to use a walkthrough before I start pulling my hair of my head :P).
I don't know how many hours I have been using this machine but most of the time I have been installing stuff and configuring it (DOS 6.22 and Win3.11, editing autoexec and config and installing new and old stuff like CTmouse and 4DOS).
Also I have been planning to buy a Compact Flash to IDE like this one http://www.dx.com/p/cf-compact-flash-card-to-ide-40-pin-adapter-w-rear-pci-slot-panel-max-32gb-93248#.VtnQhdA5GQY to replace the harddrive.
Another project I have been planning is to make a Raspberry Pi to a WLAN bridge so I can connect my 486 to my wireless network.
There's a redditor (name withheld just in case) who made these incredible install-and-play collections of thousands of DOS games with a frontend containing art and info called eXoDOS, which are available on Archive.org.
To answer the title of the thread, yes it would most likely be possible to run dos/windows on that laptop.
To answer the real question about if you can install dos through dosbox, I don't think so. As far as I know, dos box doesn't handle anything boot related, including the master boot record of your drive. I'd suggest instead using something like vmware or virtualbox, and using the physical drive raw instead of a disk image.
Yes there's a [cpu]
section in dosbox.conf
where you can adjust the type of CPU emulated and the speed it runs at.
I usually find it's better to run at a fixed cycles count, eg:
core=auto cputype=auto cycles=fixed 20000 cycleup=1000 cycledown=1000
Now with Ctrl+F11 or Ctrl+F12 you go up and down by 1000 cycles, which is visible in the DOSBox title bar when you're not in fullscreen mode.
The exact right value varies per game and per computer, everyone else's settings are just a starting point for you to tune from.
There's also an [sblaster]
section where you configure the soundcard like:
sbtype=sb16 sbbase=220 irq=7 dma=1 hdma=5 sbmixer=true oplmode=auto oplemu=default oplrate=44100
Understand that back in DOS days, we didn't have an OS taking care of sound cards and multimedia like we do these days, every program which wanted to access a hardware device (like a game accessing a soundcard) had to have its own driver and setup the access manually. That's what all these settings are, they are settings the program needs to access the soundcard.
Usually there's a program like setsound.exe
or setup.exe
or install.exe
which you can run that lets you configure the sound. In this program you can often auto-detect sound, or you might have to manually tell it "Sound Blaster 16" with "Port 220" and "IRQ 7" and "DMA 1" and "High DMA 5" before the sound will work. Not every program will ask for every setting, some only ask for port, some only ask for IRQ and DMA.
All the settings in dosbox.conf
are explained on the wiki at http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/dosbox.conf and there's comments in the config file too.
If you don't like messing around in the config files, you can use a frontend which lets you configure DOSBox config per-game with a graphical frontend: https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBoxFrontends
Powerslave looks awesome. Doom clone in Ancient Egypt? I thought I was an expert on 90's shareware titles, but this one is new to me.
I'd try out DOSBox for these guys, myself.
DOSBox is not that hard to use at all. In fact there is a way that you can set up a shortcut that launches the game you want with just a double-click like anything else, so you never actually have to do anything in DOSBox. Taken from https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBoxShortcuts
>* Create a new shortcut to the DOSBox .exe file, or copy the one created when you installed DOSBox.
>* Edit the properties of the shortcut.
>* At the end of the "Target" line, add, in quotes, the full path of the main game executable that you wish to launch.
>(For example, if "The Settlers 2" was installed into the folder C:\Games\Settlers 2\, and DosBox is installed at it's default location, the target box would contain:
>"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.72\dosbox.exe" -conf "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.72\dosbox.conf" "C:\Games\Settlers 2\S2.exe"
>* NB: the -conf command line option, which is specified in the line above, is optional, since it refers to the default config file. However, if you use a custom config file, then you will need to retain this line, suitably amended to refer to your custom .conf file.
Are we limited to one post per day, because I tried to upload this particular one along with my last one I did, but it either got deleted or my uploading is buggy. Lately, I've been working on my StreamPi script (https://www.bitchute.com/video/2yWzuFMUaBra), so I haven't streamed anything or done anymore art like this recently. When I'm done, I'll do more if I haven't already annoyed people enough with it here on /r/dosgaming. 😅 I've also got a hold on VBasic, QBasic, FreeBASIC, FreePascal, a DOS version of LÖVE's game engine, OHRRPGCE, MegaZeux, Textworld and a bunch of other development tools. So...might make something. Not sure yet. Only problem is half of them require you to have them installed to play what I make.
Check out the official Dosbox forum at vogons.org and DosBox SVN repo for the up to date info.
I guess Dosbox is a mature product so there might not be a need for a new release. Although there have been changes in SVN, so that might or might not be true. You might want to ask the devs directly over at Vogons.
I think it might be this one if you want to try the abandonware version http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/5575/Wrath+of+Earth.html
It looks like it’s from the “as quickly as possible churn out games like Duke Nukem” era.
Not strictly a platformer, or cowboys, but could it be North & South? I know it has side scrolling levels on a train and in a village.
The only other game I can think of is Sunset Riders, but I don't believe it ever had a DOS port. If it did I would love to play it.
There are DOS drivers for USB controllers, i.e. DUSE. AFAIK they're only used currently to enable USB storage devices to be mounted under DOS, but if you can communicate with the bus, it should be possible to write a driver that maps an emulated gameport to a USB device. I just don't think anyone's done so as yet.
Yes, but it's only partly documented.
You need to set <code>redner.scaler</code> to one of available values. The part that is not documented: it won't work for games using "high resolution" - that is if width is 640 pixels or higher OR height is 480 pixels or higher (it's very rare, but some games use weird resolutions like 640x200 and are negatively affected by this). To work around this you need to set forced
scaler, for example, try value hq3x forced
. This might have negative effect of DOSBox window mode being larger than your actual screen.
DB-15 to USB is only part of the solution. I think Microsoft put out some adapters that only work with Sidewinder joysticks, and all I can find are drivers for the Gamepad Pro that seem to be coming from dubious sites.
I think you need something like this Rockfire adapter: https://www.amazon.com/Rockfire-game-Adapter-RM-203-gameport/dp/B004HAX7OU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 it specifically has a mode for gamepads, and you probably could return it to Amazon if it didn't work.
If you can't find one with what you want, there are always SATA to Molex adapters for sale.
The first thought that came to mind was Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure based on your description of the main character and the isometric view. But that seems almost a little too easy, considering the popularity of the game. But short of that I'm coming up empty on my search, so that's my final answer Regis :)
edit: unless I'm misunderstanding, are you saying this isn't a DOS game? Was it something that seemed console-ish?
I understand what you are talking about, but I have a feeling such a list does not exist. I say that because a lot of the games that typically played fullscreen (pixely and ugly 3D) could also be played in windowed mode. That being said, try looking on Mobygames. I know you can search specifically for Windows 3.1 games, and can filter by video mode. That should at least narrow down the search. You might also head over to the Vogons forums to see if anyone there knows.
Just to double-check I installed Daggerfall using Lutris (DOSBox / GOG installer) and recorded it for a bit using OBS (on Linux). It worked perfectly, no mouse issues at all.
Lutris uses DOSBox Staging by default - I suggest you give it a go and see how it works. If you don't use Linux, you can download DOSBox Staging also for Windows or macOS, of course :)
There are things like MoSlo which are TSRs that just take up CPU cycles so slow the CPU down using software.
In the BIOS you may be able to disable L1/L2/L3 cache to harm performance.
In DOSBox, adding max cycles does not work for every game, sometimes you need to specify a cycles count. I do this:
cycles=fixed 20000 cycleup=2500 cycledown=2500
Then use Ctrl+F11 and Ctrl+F12 to make the emulation faster and slower in big steps.
You may also have to play with core=normal
or core=dynamic
However, if the game plays okay for a while, then glitches later, that sounds like a game bug more than anything else.
There is a lot of discussion on the game on Abandonia: http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=13472
These are just a few of my all time favorite games designed specifically for DOS. Please note that a few of these have either been released as freeware or is available for sale on Steam and/or GOG.com ; a few of these games listed below had also been ported to other operating systems:
Xargon
Wolfenstein 3-D
The Ultimate Doom, Doom 2: Hell On Earth
Duke Nukem 1, Duke Nukem II, Duke Dukem 3D
Total Velocity
Dune, Dune II
Descent
Bio-Menace
Jill of the Jungle
Jazz Jackrabbit, Jazz Jackrabbit 2
Major Stryker
Realms of Chaos
Commander Keen 1 through 6
Hocus Pocus
Raptor: Call of the Shadows
Solar Winds, Solar Winds 2
Dark Ages
Spirit of Excalibur, Vengeance of Excalibur
Epic Pinball
Beneath A Steel Sky
Monuments of Mars
Battle Chess
Alien Breed, Alien Breed: Tower Assault
Tyrian 2000
Galactix
Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness
Quake
Theme Hospital
Star Control 3
Maelstrom
Kingdom of Kroz
Space Quest 3
Leisure Suit Larry 3
Simon the Sorcerer
LineWars
Hugo's House of Horrors
I can find plenty of downloads for My Paint by Saddleback Graphics for the Apple II, Amiga, and Sega CD, but none for MS-DOS. Muddying the waters a bit, there are at least five other applications called MyPaint.
I found PC Mag (April 91) and CGW (December 91) showing a review of the DOS port, and file listings from The Audio Solution BBS and Miles Creek BBS showing they used to carry it for download for DOS, so a DOS port does exist.
I found the company's old address and it's still a business park on Google Street View but I doubt they're there anymore. I could not find names of anyone who worked there.
The Sega CD port was done by WayForward who would later go on to make Shantae. They're still in business, you could contact them and see if they still have the old DOS source laying around I spose, but I wouldn't expect a reply let alone a result.
I did find a Tandy Memorex VIS download of it on DopeROMs. The VIS was an embedded device which ran DOS and Windows 3.11 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Video_Information_System). The CD is a regular ISO filesystem and if you pull the files out and run SHELL.EXE
in DOSBox then it displays the Saddleback logo but hangs, so I guess it expects something from the original hardware? Maybe try running it inside Windows 3.11 in DOSBox? I saw some pages talking about Windows DLLs that VIS software expects to hook into.
I couldn't find anyone who's got a working VIS emulator going, though there was some talk of dumping the system BIOS adding the machine definition to MESS so perhaps look into that. Without an actual DOS download I think emulation of the VIS or any of the non-DOS ports is the closest you're going to get.
You can do an installation of Win3.11 into a DosBox prompt no problem. There are tutorials I found that helped configure Windows properly to use the right graphics and sound drivers.
EDIT: great link! http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=27770
lol, this description is pretty funny but I know how he feels. Have you tried InfraRecorder to make the ISO? It's free. What you say makes some sense -- Test Drive: Off Road was kind of like that, it'd play as a normal music CD but also had an installer for the game. If I could get a look at that it may shed some light on all this, but I can't make any guarantees.
Something you could try though is mounting your CD drive to DosBox (going off memory here but it should be "mount d d:\ -t cdrom", where d:\ is your physical cd rom device) and try to run it that way.
You can create custom keybinds in Dosbox by using the startmapper command.
In this case the EVENT would be + and the BIND would be whatever other key you want to use for it. Test it out first to make sure it works then you can add it permanently into your config file for this game.
Assuming of course that you are using dosbox.
So far I haven't had any noticable problems with games. For me the real benefit is that dosbox can read files from your filesystem and you don't have an isolated system like with qemu or vbox that you have to figure out how to copy files over.
On their site is a compatibility list of tested games but not sure how up to date it is https://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php
As most people have suggested, it's a good idea to start with DOSBOX. Old computers are a pain in the ass, and you might end up with a bunch of stuff lying around the house collecting dust. If you end up liking DOS gaming, you can always look into getting your hands on actual hardware later on.
One thing about DOS gaming is that there were some cool sound peripherals that aren't emulated by default in DOSBOX. For example, a lot of old games had support for the MT-32, which gave you way better sound and can be emulated using Munt. It isn't included by default in DOSBOX because you need to download roms, but you can set it up pretty easily.
https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/MIDI_software_devices#Roland_MT-32
How DOSBox works is that is 'creates' a Z: drive that is basically a boot disk. From there, you mount specific folders as C:. So if you directly load DOSBox, you will always start out in Z:, then type in the command to mount whatever folder you want as your C: drive.
https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/MOUNT
So your games will work as normally, because it's going by the internal DOSBox drive, not the computer OS's drive letter.
System Shock.
It is still an excellent game. It used to be Freeware, but the one (forgot which company that is) who holds the copyright, drew back that release, and is not anymore.
There's one catch: you need to get by with the clunky controls. Mouselook was not that common at the FPS of the era (since real 3D was just being invented), and the pretty much now default UI paradigm of FPS's had not yet stabilized. There are mouselook patches out there. I **think** the gog.com release has most things adjusted quite optimally.
Or you can use the free Text Fiction app and play Zork and a ton of other interactive fiction natively. No emulators required!
It bugs me that only a few of the games have links to download the game archive directly. As much as Jason Scott has been hyping it, in-browser emulation is slow, unreliable, and very limited in its capabilities, and I'd much rather use my own local install of DOSBox, configured to my liking, with my preferred video and audio settings, and without having DOSBox sitting on top of a stack of memory- and CPU-wasting dependencies that it doesn't actually need.
Thankfully, there's always this separate meta-collection.
https://www.amazon.com/110v-Power-Supply-Molex-5000mA/dp/B002TJNDU4
3.5" drives power directly off USB, and fun fact, most USB floppy drives can't read old disks properly anyway.
for me, there was no better stick then what gravis made, excellent for tie fighters and x-wing games too. i had the see through model (i still have it in fact, still works like new).
https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Gravis-Analog-Joystick-Compatible-Computers/dp/B073WRYYBK
Great game. There's an Android port in the store if you want to play it on the go. It works well but the controls aren't great.
For a controller, I use a Playstation Move Navigation Controller https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002I0K6X6. Enough buttons for lots of games, wireless, and well supported by reWASD.
For games, turn-based strategy or RPG titles lend themselves to one-handed play once you map the controller buttons to the appropriate keys.
get
https://www.abandonwaredos.com/abandonware-game.php?abandonware=Norton+Commander+5.5&gid=1814
if you are not familiar with the filesystem of DOS and try out some stuff, should work at one point or another.
ExpressVPN, which does not support port forwarding on its main apps. However, my understanding from this article is that this should only make a difference for seeding speeds, not downloads.
I also tried turning off my VPN to see if it made a difference, but the downloads were even slower. Right now, with the VPN on, I am seeing about 60-80 Kib/s for ExoDOS, verus about 160 KiB/s for ExoDOS_Lite. In fact, the lite version is always a lot faster than the full version. 60-80 KiB/s translates to an estimated download time of 93 days, by the way.
I had a game that looked like that on the TI-83 calculator lol... just no coloured lines.
Is it this game? http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/746128-racecar-dos-screenshot-failed-hard.png
more screenshots! http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/racecar/screenshots/gameShotId,746122/
I googled: racecar dos
My first guess was Paganitzu, but it doesn't quite match up with your description.
Otherwise, here's a list of games similar to Boulder Dash, courtesy of Giant Bomb. This may be helpful in your search.
Yep, DOS 6.2 should run ok on that but likely won't utilize all it's memory (which is fine). Otherwise FreeDos (https://www.freedos.org/) will run just fine on that and might be easier to access some of the more modern networking stuff.
You can just dd an image to the floppy device:
dd if=myimage.img of=/dev/fd0 status=progress bs=1K
This will copy myimage.img to the first floppy drive (A: in DOS) in 1KB blocks while showing some progress bar.
Be careful with dd. If of=
points to something you care about it will be overwritten without confirmation.
Depending on your flavor of Linux you might have to be root or elevate your user with sudo.
You might have to load the floppy kernel driver first. See here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Floppy_disks
Here are some pointers for other OSes (back when Debian had boot disks, more a curiosity): https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/powerpc/ch04s03.html.en
No, it was a Windows game from 2001 that I played on a Linux laptop ca 2007 and it ran just fine, but if I understand the documentation correctly this might mean that the game used OpenGL as graphics calls are just forwarded to the host drivers? It does seem as if too old hosts do not get Direct 3D though. https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/UserManual.html#guestadd-3d
I can't believe I forgot storage.
I just keep ordering SD card to IDE adapters off Amazon and using high quality 32 GB MicroSD cards. This is actually the exact model I use. I believe it's hard jumpered to be the master, so if you put a CD-ROM on the same IDE cable, make sure it's set to slave. I don't think cable select will work. But maybe have a spare IDE cable just in case. I always hear conflicting reports about those things playing well with different CD-ROMs.
I go with 32 GB, because that's the functional limit of a FAT32 partition. Generally I install DOS 7.1 or Win98SE. DOS 7.1 was never an official release, but WinWorldPC hosts an ISO of a community made installation package for it. Works great.
If you go with DOS 6.22, you'll be on FAT16, and you'll want to restraint yourself to a 2 or 4 GB storage solution. Generally not worth it IMHO, but some people are purist for specific versions of DOS.
And of course because it's a MicroSD card, it's super easy to pull it out, add files to it, and plug it back into the machine. There is a dude on ebay selling 3d printed front panel mounts for those SD to IDE adapters so you can easily pull it from the front.
Hmm. Might be worth a look at the technical supplement sheet for the game; of special note is that since you have an 8mb machine, if you have smartdrv loaded, you're likely to run into trouble. Have a look:
http://www.abandonia.com/files/extras/28748_BatmanForeverTechnicalSupplement.pdf
Cool idea. Abandonia has a whole category called Hot Seat for games which might suit this style of play: http://www.abandonia.com/en/game/all/Hot+Seat/
If my memory is correct, the old 4X game Stars! actually included a PBEM mode built right into the game.
Yeah for many games once I play enough I end up spending more time digging into how the game actually works rather than "playing" it per se. This happened for Space Rogue, DDO, Rise of Nations, and a host of other games that I don't really post about on the 'net. Currently I'm looking at Rise of Nations and Castles II: Siege and Conquest. I post what I find about Rise of Nations on the wiki for it, but haven't found one for Castles II, so I'll likely end up putting a summary of what I figure out into a walkthrough for GameFAQs or something at some point.
In the meantime, I've figured out how the plots are stored (in LIB.CLU), and am now looking through the instructions governing what happens for each of the options you select, etc. There's 80831 lines of instructions though (6 bytes each) so it'll take a while to figure out. I've figured out almost half of them now, though 20706 of them is simply "display text XX". I've put the raw display text dump on Abandonia here if anybody wants to read through them.
If I had to guess I'd bet some of the caps had blown on the motherboard. I've had desktops do this kind of stuff. If you have one of those ISA diagnostic cards, some have a parallel port adapter you can use to try and check if it's posting at all or just completely gone. This is what I'm talking about if you haven't seen one before: http://www.dx.com/p/pc-motherboard-repair-troubleshoot-diagnostic-pci-usb-isa-parallel-card-6-digit-codes-37720
You could visually inspect the inside also and see if anything is obviously blown, but older laptops are a major pain to put back together (in my experience, anyway).
I've got a pretty comprehensive collection but I wasn't able to find anything. Do you happen to know the name of the game, or is cabinet.exe what you're going off of?
http://www.homeoftheunderdogs.net/game.php?id=506
http://www.myabandonware.com/game/yes-prime-minister-the-computer-game-kd
Are either of these close?
A great Point & Click adventure game. I didn't actually have this back in the day, but got it off GOG.com a few years ago for free. Such a great game! One of the last "proper" point and clicks.
Is your Windows 7 computer 64 bit? Well, your probably going to have trouble running most dos games, as they are 16 bit executables.
If your running a 32 bit system, you can try out VDMsound. https://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/
It fills in some of the missing features needed to run dos game. I hasn't been updated for a while and has pretty much been surpassed in capability by DosBox.
Was the game in question by any chance American Gladiators by Magicom?
https://www.abandonwaredos.com/abandonware-game.php?abandonware=American+Gladiators&gid=1196
I think I have the full version. I just googled it and it wasn't hard to find. I promise I'll take a look when I'm back home and send it to you.
That said, I first found the game on a CD-Rom that a friend had. That cd is long since gone and I'm not sure the version I found is 100% the same, as I don't recall getting the integer overflow bug I mentioned earlier on that... then again, I was in primary school at the time so maybe I just didn't play it enough.
FYI I installed a win98 virtual machine and I still get the integer overflow error as I remembered all those years ago on a physical win98 computer. If you know anything about that let me know.
Holy crap that looks ~~terrible~~ interesting. I love the midi though.
Here it is on abandonia if anyone wants to check it out
There are pretty small Intel Atom-based devices that can boot FreeDOS or even come with FreeDOS pre-installed, so I think most parts (CPU, BIOS, RAM) can be solved using reasonably cheap off-the shelf hardware (even if several times more expensive than ARM would be). But perfect compatibility with old graphics cards may be lacking(?) and sound is always an issue since games shipped with their own sound drivers abd of course will not support any cards that did not yet exist.
EDIT: First example from I find on google: https://www.flipkart.com/rdp-plugpc-07-free-dos-intel-atom-quad-core-soc-2-gb-ddr3-32-hdd-stick-pc/p/itmeert62vdsjgpg/specifications?lid&pid=MPCEERT686UXWHNW&tab=spec A bit expensive at $250, but also waaaay overpowered for any DOS games and even smaller than a Classic device would require
Sounds like it might be WizKid (Wizball 2). Been a long time since I played.
Edit screenshot.
The game runs fine on Windows XP, using VirtualBox on my Mac. Can't make it work with DOSBox, unable to find the S/N directory I guess.
Now available (NSFW): http://www.myabandonware.com/game/girlfriend-9yr
Game is quite good as you can see on the screenshots, but only one gf is available :(
Just saw that you mentioned "Crimson Field", are you referring to the "Battle Isle" remake? If so, you know BI already ;) There's also another remake of that game called "Advanced Strategic Command (ASC)".
What's nice about BI is that it's an excellent 2-Player/1-Screen game. While one is planning the movement, the other one is planning the attacks. That were some fun session on the Amiga back then...
Try this installer, see if that makes a difference. If that doesn't work, try a SVN build of DOSBox. Other than that, not sure what to say. It's pretty much the same as what I have.
If you will be absolutely desperate, you can get dbgl dosbox frontend here: http://members.quicknet.nl/blankendaalr/dbgl/#gamepackarchivesdownload
If you scroll down, you will see there game packages for import into the forntend. One of them is Daggerfall, complete with set up. It is legal, as Dagerfall is free game.
If download all the bells and whistles, it still comes out smaller (after adding games and emulators) than if you tried to get a similar setup on TinyCore or Damn Small Linux. It's also faster and less RAM. I just thought it would be worth looking into for running DOSBox since it's nearly instant in booting up compared to anything else I've found.
There is a system called AROS that's an Amiga/UNIX like something or other that includes DOSBox and many others that might be worth checking out if you're really looking for something to scratch your head over. http://aros.sourceforge.net/
I do not use VirtualBox, but I know others have gotten the main version of PsychOS running live and/or installed on it just fine. Also, someone recently posted an online VM of PsychOS people could try. However, just in case there is any confusion, "PsychOS" is the name of the project and is also the name of the main GNU/Linux distribution while "PsychOS486" is the second distro I have made for this project with an even older target. Hopefully that makes sense. And please make sure to capitalize the "OS" part.
You can run both "PsychOS" and "PsychOS486" live without installing and therefore no need for a VM if you wanted to and both of them do not use much RAM at all; however, newer computer owners will probably have to turn secure boot off as I am only targeting 32-bit and older systems at the moment, so I do not really feel too bad about that. PsychOS running live does not have persistence, ie saving your live session but PsychOS486 does and can also be installed to a USB as if it were an actual hard drive.
Remember, it's GNU/Linux; there are always options. Always.
An alternate suggestion to some of the ideas here is freedos. https://www.freedos.org/
I installed it on an XP era machine (Dell Dimension 4200) a while ago to program a ThrustMaster Flightstick. The video and CD worked out of the box. I didn't really mess around to try anything with sound though.
I would have just used FreeDOS (https://www.freedos.org/) and then go to my website's (https://theouterlinux.gitlab.io) Recommended DOS Software section on the home page, but it's still cool to have an original copy of MS-DOS.
Starfighter 3000 is quite obscure. It's not a great game, but has some interesting ideas (deformable terrain and a weird powerup system). You will need to do some tricks to get it running
The big problem with cpu speed is that dosbox isn't cycle accurate, so the speed setting on one PC is not the same as the speed setting on another. Because of this w hat is a good speed for someone else, may not be a good speed for you. Even the dosbox wiki has instructions on how to do your own benchmarking to find the right cpu cycles to match the target PC.
DBGL is the most widely-used in the last few years, but what is "best" is more or less a personal decision - Have a look at this list and take your pick:
Are you mapping drives on startup? https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/AUTOEXEC
Also, you can use dosbox with playnite. Which is the best launcher around that will pull libraries from steam, gog, uplay, origin, emulators, disbox, whatever
I'm asking because I plan to remove physical CD-ROM support from my version of DOSBox (not upstream version you're using; physical CD-ROM support was removed from SDL2 and I can't maintain a whole new library for this usecase). By DOSBox page you mean this or some other article? I want to provide correct instructions on loading games using CD-ROM image, so users of my version will be able to backup and play their games.
Try some of these loading tips I'm not sure what version you're running but I have the feeling that the answer to your issue can be found there.
With "dos box", do you mean DosBOX or the Windows 98 DOS command prompt?
DosBOX does not care what kind of sound card you have, because everything is emulated. Sound should work as long as it works in Windows, and DosBOX is configured correctly (well, MIDI can be another thing, since that data can be relayed to practically anything outside DosBOX). If it is the dos prompt in Win98, you should definitely get some sound in there, too - but the card needs to be configured separately correctly.
Do you get sound in Windows?
If you want to get sound in DOS, you need to give more information, such as the exact model of your current sound card, and paste the config.sys and autoexec.bat here.
Wouldn't it be a cool idea to record a video of this sometime? I'd love to see you put all this into practice, even though personally I never played this game.
Youtube can process DOSBox's video output without a problem, although the video quality is really improved if you point upscale it (no smoothing) 8x to get it in HD territory.
A lot has been said already, just my 2 cents:
1) DOS games usually come in two flavors — as zip archives of already installed games and as img/ima files (they are to floppies what iso/mdf/nrg is to CD-R). You need something like WinImage to deal with the latter.
2) I assume you want to use your "modern" PC to make floppies for your Pentium. Unless you have an internal floppy drive in your new PC, you're going to need a USB floppy drive. If that's the case, beware that those devices usually are not very reliable. They are not "real" floppy drives which is particularly troublesome for writing img/ima (less so for simply copying files on floppies)
3) I'd really reconsider the LAN approach. You just need to set up some sort of FTP server on your network — that could be your modern PC (Windows has a built-in FTP), your router/NAS or just an old computer running Linux and vsftpd. Once you got that, get TotalCommander, WinImage and Daemon Tools on your Pentium (all of that works under Windows 95-98) and you can forgo the physical media altogether.
I second this, get it from gog.com . no annoying problems that way.
Also if a gog.com game requres copy protection, like with kings quest 4, they provide the copy protection codes via PDF when you buy a game.
I use a VGA to RCA adapter. It works well for me.
Fosmon VGA To RCA Adapter, Composite AV S Video To VGA Converter, PC To TV Video Switch Box https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009OMYHJU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glc_fabc_V50V8VNYPQEJ8ZTT6J81?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Ok, I and shooting from the hip here but from my limited research what you are looking for are chips described as "soj 40" packaging. Searching for "soj 40 L2 cache" comes up with a lot of results, here is one from eBay and here is one from Amazon It's been too long since I had messed with such things so I don't know if it is suppose to be SRAM or DRAM though, and you see the eBay listing is dram and the Amazon is SRAM. BUT you now know the packaging type, so you just need to know the ram size (perhaps 32KB as /u/joeuser0123 has mentioned) and the ram type (SRAM or DRAM) you will need 8 of each. I hope this helps and didn't make it more confusing.
>I remember one specifically about recreating the 2d-ray-casting 3d engine from Wolfenstein.
Are you possibly referring to this book? https://www.amazon.com/Tricks-Game-Programming-Gurus-Andre-Lamothe/dp/0672305070
If you’re after a detailed explanation of Wolf3d, I really enjoyed this:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Game-Engine-Black-Book-Wolfenstein/dp/1539692876
There’s also one for Doom: (also excellent)
https://www.amazon.com/Game-Engine-Black-Book-DOOM/dp/1099819776
The version of QFG1 on my phone is VGA, so no. I do have other Sierra games also on my phone (such as QFG2) which do use the text parser. I use the ScummVM launcher and gamefiles from my Steam installation on PC.
No no no, you misunderstand. I wasnt using a USB mouse.
When i was testing my Serial mouse i used a usb adapter to test on my main computer (ie, giving my primary computer a temporary serial port).
Both mice i have i got here. I got 2 of them, so they are exactly the same.
And i dont remember having this much trouble getting mice to work in the 90's lol. And this a DX4-100, but i think the board is out of a gateway computer. (tho back then i dont think it would matter too much).
There are both USB-connected floppy drives and floppy drive emulators for older computers available at reasonable prices. USB sticks tend to fare better in the long run.
It has a single, hardwired (or soldered) port. Here is the card im using.
i have a little bit of a 'manual' for this board, so to speak, but it doesnt have much information. From what i can read on the motherboard, it goes back and forth on the rows.
2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 |
like that.
I might just try ordering a couple ribbon cables, just for laughs. But i don't now if they are A or B type.
I was able to solve a few of the issues with my Xcapture. They were not kidding when they said that it works best with a NEC Renesas based USB3 Host Controller. They should really have put "Only Works" with that type. I picked up a Tenext PCI Express 4-Port SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller Card for my main desktop since the on board chip was a ASMedia based controller.
My PII system with a Radeon 9800 Pro picks up now all the way from the start of booting right to Windows with very little issue switching video modes along the way. The Pentium 1 system with a Matrox Millennium II has a bit more trouble and will not pick up at all in DOS still but once I get in windows it looks clear with no issues.
I've been doing some recordings and am going to create a full review of the Xcapture-1 here soon hopefully.
Thanks for the update on the Kenzei.
That's too bad. Good to know, though.
Have you seen this?
It looks like what you need (no sound, though), but it's hilariously expensive.
That one is actually HDMI to VGA but that is the sort of thing I was thinking. This is the one I was going to try. It looks like it should do what I need without loss of signal.
I still want to be able to play directly on the monitor for that computer so I was going to try this splitter box with one going to the converter and the other going to my monitor.
Both are powered so there should not be much loss in signal.