DOSBox

I remember I posted an article about some old games here. Some of those games need to be executed in a MS-DOS computer. And since there's nothing more like that in present, so they made a system that would just do the same.

DOSBox is an emulator to emulate/simulate an IBM PC compatible computer running the older operating system, MS-DOS. -Wikipedia

I won't say more detail about it, or how the system works in detail. If you want to know more about DOSBox in detail, just go to Wikipedia, it much more reliable than my blog. haha...
here's the Wikipedia's link. and here's where you can get DOSBox emulator.

It is an open source software written in C++ programming language. Apparently, its development is more focusing in running DOS games. It uses command lines to operate. 


For some people who are not really in a good term with all those command lines (including me), using that command-prompt-like, is such a thing to do. I always think that people who can operates a computer or whatever inside it, by using command lines, is the coolest. It's like literally watching their super advance brain doing some works to produce those lines. Okay, even though I'm a student in informatics engineering major, but that's just not my thing. So, I'm sorry for my lack of ability. *bows*


Back to DOSBox. In my opinion, it's like a virtual box, where you can simulates another computer in your computer. You can simulates a different operating systems that your computer have by using virtual box. And you can share data from your real computer to your virtual ones.
That's how the DOSBox basically works. You mount your games data that you have in your real computer, to the DOSBox emulator. After that, you can play it normally just like in your real computer.

There are instructions for using this DOSBox. You need to type: "INTRO" or "HELP" to see those instructions, after you run the emulator. But when you're too lazy to understand those instruction lines, here's the thing you do when you want to play a DOS game using this emulator:

1. Mount your games folder to the C:\ folder of DOSBox, using this command => mount c [your games folder path]. Example: mount c f:\games\ 
2. Change partitions where you are now to C:\ where your games folder is mounted. command => c: 
3. Change your directory to the folder where your executable games file is in. command => cd [folder path]. You might want to check your directory list before type it, because sometimes, if the actual directory name is too long, it's been shortened. You have to use that shortened name. To check directory list, command => dir. Example: cd prehis~1 (actual directory name is Prehistorik, but it is shortened to prehis~1 by the emulator).       
4. Keep changing your directory until you find your executable file. After that, run that executable file command => [executable filename].exe.  And now you are ready to play your game.                    

You can full-screen-ing the games by pressing [ALT]+[ENTER], so does it if you want to go back to the window size. If you want to end a game, just press the [ESC] key, and you'll be back to the last directory.

So that's the simple instructions to play your old games in modern computer. Happy reminiscing old times folks! :D


Adios! ^^