DOSBOX Programming Help

[John W Kercheval]

I am offering a $250 fee for someone who really knows how to use DOSBOX to create some desktop icons to run some old DOS programs under Win 7 64 bit.

I have one that runs that way and am looking for three others but I do not know how to use DOSBOX to create such files.

Need: immediate. Must accept PayPal.

Let me know if you can do it.

John Kercheval

[Han]

I don't think you create the shortcuts in DOSBOX. If you know how to run the programs you want to run in DOSBOX then I think you simply need to create separate shortcuts to DOSBOX. After creating the shortcuts to DOSBOX, right-click the shortcut icon and edit it so that it runs DOSBOX with command line options. For example, if your DOSBOX program is C:\DOSPROGRAMS\MYPROG.EXE, then it should be as simple as changing the shortcut command to:

…\DOSBOX.EXE C:\DOSPROGRAMS\MYPROG.EXE

where the "…" is presumably the path to DOSBOX (should already be there from creating the shortcut). Can't hurt to try while you're waiting on someone to reply.

[Jeff O.]

(11-20-2014 12:51 PM)John W Kercheval Wrote:  I am offering a $250 fee for someone who really knows how to use DOSBOX to create some desktop icons to run some old DOS programs under Win 7 64 bit.

I have one that runs that way and am looking for three others but I do not know how to use DOSBOX to create such files.

Need: immediate. Must accept PayPal.

Let me know if you can do it.

John Kercheval

I sure don't qualify as a DOSBox expert, but I was able to install it and get it to work with one old DOS program that I really wanted to keep using after I was converted to WIN 7, with a shortcut to my desktop that opens the program in DOSBox. You can make DOSBox do things at startup using the dosbox-0.74.conf file. At the bottom, there is an [autoexec] section, which has commands that run at startup. My autoexec section reads as follows:

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
MOUNT c E:\cadd6
C:
CADD

The above commands tell DOSBox to treat my E:\cadd6 directory as the C: drive, then changes directory to the C: drive, then executes the cadd program. The shortcut on my desktop looks like this:

"E:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe"

The above would let you start one program in DOSBox. I would think you could have multiple folders (DOSBox1, DOSbox2, etc.), each the target of a different shortcut. Each folder would have a full instance of DOSBox inside, with a dosbox-0.74.conf file and [autoexec] section causing it to run a different program.

Hope the above makes sense and helps, I have no idea if Han's method will work, if so, probably a lot cleaner. Ask if you have any questions.

[John W Kercheval]

I think Han's method is working.

[John W Kercheval]

Ok that works BUT all of my programs ask for a rectory in which data files are held and when I inpout that directry the data is not found.

These are securities analysius programs.

Any ideas? I THINK there are a couple of DOSBOX codes that you putv into the input stream in the shortcut to correct this.

[John W Kercheval]

OK GUYS! Here is the answer you MUST do what Han said BUT you must also modify the file

dosbox.conf

accordingly within the directory that holds the program that is being executed.

How did I figure this out? Hard drugs.

Jst kidding but i just viewed all of the files & this one seemed to be the natural one to mod.

When you look in there the changes are obvious.


THANKS!

[John W Kercheval]

One more thing does anyone know how to resize the DOSBOX? Those charts are hard to see in there and the mouse pointer does not seem to help.

[Jeff O.]

(11-20-2014 07:54 PM)John W Kercheval Wrote:  One more thing does anyone know how to resize the DOSBOX? Those charts are hard to see in there and the mouse pointer does not seem to help.

Have you tried playing with the parameters under [sdl] in the conf file? I know I adjusted my window size. I think I fiddled with the "fullresolution" and windowresolution" parameters. Right now I use these parameters:

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=1280x1024
windowresolution=1280x1024
output=overlay
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper-0.74.map
usescancodes=true

Above settings make a nice sized window on my monitors, but your mileage may vary. Don't know if you will need this, but I found that I can get the mouse "out" of the DOSBox window, in case I need to do something else somewhere else, by pressing the "windows" key.

[Garth Wilson]

I tried modifying dosbox.conf then starting DOSBox again but the changes did not take effect. What am I missing?

[John W Kercheval]

Garth Kinda hard to tell w/o looking at it. The changes I made were making sure all of the paths were correct and agreed with the paths needed to run the pgm.

[John W Kercheval]

Jeff I tried that the only thing that made ANY difference was making fullscreen AND fulldouble = true. It took the full screen but the chart was just as small, a small chart with a hue black area around it.

You are on the right track though. That section does need to be adjusted.

[Jeff O.]

(11-20-2014 10:56 PM)John W Kercheval Wrote:  Jeff I tried that the only thing that made ANY difference was making fullscreen AND fulldouble = true. It took the full screen but the chart was just as small, a small chart with a hue black area around it.

You are on the right track though. That section does need to be adjusted.

Seems like there is another section where you tell it what kind of graphics adapter to emulate. I don't remember if I messed with that or if it made any difference, but you could check it out.

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(11-20-2014 07:54 PM)John W Kercheval Wrote:  One more thing does anyone know how to resize the DOSBOX?

I just do ALT-ENTER and DOSbox goes full screen. ALT-ENTER then returns it back to the smaller window. It scales the window up to full screen, so that everything in DOSbox appears larger. I just tested this on my Windows 8 machine to make sure I had it right.

Bill

[John W Kercheval]

Yes as I indicated previously going to full screen does not work. It DOES go to full screen but the image of the graph stays the same size.

I have FOUR pgms I am using this way from different places and they all behave that way,

HOWEVER the fifth works great you can resize the window it is just perfect. But i did not dosbox that one. Some other guy did it and I just copied his screen stuff into my .conf file. But it did not help.

John

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(11-23-2014 11:39 AM)John W Kercheval Wrote:  Yes as I indicated previously going to full screen does not work. It DOES go to full screen but the image of the graph stays the same size.

I have FOUR pgms I am using this way from different places and they all behave that way,

HOWEVER the fifth works great you can resize the window it is just perfect. But i did not dosbox that one. Some other guy did it and I just copied his screen stuff into my .conf file. But it did not help.

John

I run DOSbox in it's default configuration. I believe this is a standard 640x480 screen mode. When I do alt-enter, the entire dosbox windows scales up to fit my large monitor screen. This includes any graphics that are being displayed in the 640x480 window. Everything just appears a lot larger. I just tested it again on my Windows 8 machine with several graphics programs including an old version of Tetris. In all cases, it scales up to fit the large screen.

Not sure why this doesn't work for you.

Maybe this scaling doesn't work if the dosbox window is set for a larger screen mode. I've never tried setting a larger dosbox screen mode.

Bill

[John W Kercheval]

Nope tried that locks the system hard.

[John W Kercheval]

Can anyone tell me what this means?

winsys/M:/48:8000

[eried]

(11-23-2014 08:44 PM)John W Kercheval Wrote:  Can anyone tell me what this means?

winsys/M:/48:8000

That's probably running "winsys" with these params?

Which are the programs you are running? (Maybe some modern app replaces all your vintage dos apps?)

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(11-23-2014 08:44 PM)John W Kercheval Wrote:  Can anyone tell me what this means?

winsys/M:/48:8000

John,

This is a pretty cryptic question. Can you give more info?

Where did you see this? Which file? Can you provide copy of the file?

I have searched the DOSbox.conf Wiki and cannot find a reference to winsys...
Also, the items in the CONF file are of the form xxxx=xxxxxx.

You need to provide details if you wish to get a meaningful answer to a question.

Otherwise, we are just playing the game "Stump the Chumps" and at present:

This Chump is Stumped.

Bill

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(11-23-2014 08:29 PM)John W Kercheval Wrote:  Nope tried that locks the system hard.

John,

What exactly did you try when you say you "tried that"? I'm not sure what steps you performed.

And when you say the system locked hard, are you saying that dosbox locked or that the computer locked? Did you have to reset the computer or were you able to get to Task Manager and kill the dosbox task.

At this point, I'm not sure I'm being of much help, so I'll leave it for others with more knowledge to help you.

Bill