In general, DOS cannot deal with spaces in directory names very well. One important note: if you have a directory that contains a space, you have to put quotes around it. You should receive a message that the directory was mounted. In my case that would be: mount C H:\_games\DOSBox-0.72\cdrive Replace with the directory you created in step 2. Type in the following to mount the C drive: mount C And a D drive, which points to the CD drive where the game is. One C drive, which points to the empty directory we created in the previous step. The first thing we need to do now, is let DOSBox know which drives and directories we want to use. By default, there is only a Z drive present, which is used for booting DOSBox and which has some tools present. A file system, like the thing you see in explorer, but one that only exists within the DOSBox program. Mount the drivesĭOSBox creates a virtual file system. Keep the screen windowed for now, but once a game is running, you probably want to switch. At any time, you can switch between full-screen and windowed mode by pressing alt-enter. Possibly, a second screen will have opened, depending on the startup option you choose (noconsole version or not). If the installation did go right, this will be the easiest step. (note that there is already a directory “WC4” created on a previous run of the application, you don’t need to create that one) Start DOSBox Write down the name and location of that directory too.Īs for my example, theWC4 game is on a CD in drive I, DosBox is installed on drive H and I’ve created a directory inside the DosBox installation: You can just mount your entire drive, but it’s lot neater if you create a directory. This drive will hold all game related files such as savegames and configuration. Not strictly necessary, but if you like to keep your files tidy, it’s a good idea to create a directory which will be your virtual hard drive within DOSBox.If the game is somewhere on your harddrive, make a note of the entire directory name (so, starting with the drive letter, and all the way up) Put the game disc in a CD drive and make a note of the drive letter.The process will be the same for any game that comes on a CD.įirst, you’ll want to write down the following information: To focus the thoughts, I’ll be showing how to get Wing Commander IV (WC4 from now on) running. In the case of Windows, you’ll have yourself an executable that can be double clicked to get the installation started.īasic setup (don’t worry it’s not rocket science) Once the file is downloaded, install the program. This is the easy party, go to the DOSBox download site and pick your flavor. This tutorial is Windows centric, but DosBox runs on pretty much any operating system, so it should be useful for every one. Here’s the entire tutorial of how to get that game you’ve always wanted to play, working on your machine. To get you started this is what the prompt looks like (you might need to click on the image to get a clear view):īut lets not get ahead of ourselves. But if you’re interested in old technology, it’s really worth it to learn the basics of DOS. There are a bunch of frontends available that make it easier to work with DOSBox. The trouble though, for those who have never had the joy of working in DOS or who have never seen a command line, is that a prompt can be a great source of mystery. But don’t worry, most computers these days will suffice for even the most advanced 3D game of those heydays. Obviously, you need a computer that’s a hundred times more powerful than the one you originally played the game on. If you thought that old software was lost to the ages, DOSBox is here to save the day. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance And then Windows 95 came, and most of those old games just stopped working entirely. Playing the latest games involved messy configuration and hours of experimentation to get games to run correctly on your particular piece of hardware. When Personal Computers where not for the faint of heart. It emulates an x86 computer, including the DOS operating system with all its very peculiar memory management options and various hardware configurations. DOSBox is one of the greatest open source tools out there.
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