While I'm at it with #DOSBox, is there a way of making a folder or drive non-persistent?
Basically, I want the SDK to be as untouched as possible by a DOSBox session. There is no way to avoid the SDK creating files inside the \SIBOSDK folder, but existing files shouldn't be changed, and the files created could happily be lost when the session is closed.
Again, I'm thinking scripts, batch files, or Go (easily ported).
I wonder if it'd be possible to hack up a special version of #DOSBox Staging that Acronia can send commands to, which DOSBox Staging would then use to trigger #Steam achievements
Just tried compiling Wari, a game written in #Psion OO C. The project uses #Borland Make 3.6.
Got it to compile first time with my SIBO SDK setup - all good!
However... Borland Make uses 16-bit DPMI, and its extender won't load 32-bit DPMI binaries. If I pre-load the 32-bit extender, it won't load 16-bit DPMI binaries, so Make won't run!
TL;DR: I can't use the new #ctran with Borland Make 3.6.
Looks like I'll be converting that Makefile to GNU Make or a #TopSpeed project.
It helped me to find a stupid bug in my framebuffer code that slowed down clearing images.
Coding and compiling was done with #VSCode and #WATCOM,
and execution in DOSBox showed immediately what failed.
We don't see such bugs on Windows or Linux with our GHz CPUs anymore.
But with good old #DOS on an emulated 386 33 MHz host it made a jump from 2 to 18 FPS after fixing.
That's true optimization nobody cares about today. #gamedev before #Y2K must have been real fun.
31 years ago today, on May 5th 1992, the legendary Wolfenstein 3D was released for DOS. I remember my friend had it on his PC (probably the next year, 1993, when I was 13), and my family had a Mac Performa that I eventually put it on too!
Not surprisingly, lots of people still play Wolf 3D today and are dedicated to making amazing custom maps and levels for it. There's just very few things as satisfying as killing digital Nazis. I still play the DOS version sometimes myself, and I recently put the 360 version on my Series X (one of the only good console versions- the SNES one is terrible!)
And sure, you could buy the original for just a dollar or two on Steam, but you can download it for FREE (or play it for free in your browser via DOSBox) at one of my all-time favorite sites on the web, DOS Gaming dot com, here: https://dosgames.com/game/wolfenstein-3d.
Descent clearly falls into the “hasn’t aged well” bucket. It’s like Doom with proper 3D. But without interesting level design, weapons, enemies, etc. Every level is basically the same. Plus it’s really aggravatingly difficult!
The menu and intro music are good, though. I can recommend playing just the first level. That gets you some great music, a great intro sequence, and about 10 minutes of gameplay, which is more than enough.
Been hit with The Lurg for the past week. I've been at home, not moving much, trying to stay hydrated, eating a lot of chocolate HobNobs, and watching far-too-much YouTube.
However, yesterday I managed to have enough energy to:
Install a proper RS232 port in my PC (DOSBox doesn't like my CH340 USB adapter)
DOSBox Staging Basics
Today: IMGMOUNT wildcard support
The IMGMOUNT command allows you to mount disk or CD images, but sometimes you may want to mount multiple images to a single drive, swappable via a keyboard shortcut.
Previously you had to specify the names of the all the image files one by one, even if they have some patterns in common (like DISK1.IMG, DISK2.IMG, DISK3.IMG, etc).
DOSBox Stagings IMGMOUNT command supports wildcards for mounting image files, so that you can just specify a file pattern that matches all the image files that you want to include. For example, the command:
IMGMOUNT a *.img -t floppy
will mount the first image file with the IMG extension in the current directory as drive A:. You can easily swap to the next image using the hotkey CTRL+F4 on the command line or during setup when installing a new game.
As DOSBox Staging currently lacks a shader preset system, tweaking shader parameters can only be accomplished by making changes to the shader source files themselves. Previously, you had to restart DOSBox to see the effects of such changes, which made fine-tuning shaders quite cumbersome, to say the least.
Now you can just use the Ctrl+F2 shortcut (Cmd+F2 on macOS) to reload the current shader at any time. Progress! 😎
One of the first #racing game I played as a kid was #STUNTS from Brøderbund. Back in 1992/1993, this #MSDOS game was HUGE on the schoolyard! Especially, because you could make your own tracks and trade them with your friends. It was basically Trackmania in EGA graphics. 😜
For example, on Linux I have ~/dosbox, in which I have sibo-c and sibo-m folders, mounted as C: and M: in DOSBox. I also have a P: drive mapped to ~/psion containing projects.
For Windows, would you put them in c:\users\username\dosbox?
I want to make a video for using the Psion SIBO C SDK. I want to stick to conventions where possible.
I'd like to have an easy way to switch between versions of the SIBO (EPOC16) C SDK. Strictly speaking, I have four versions: 2.00, 2.10, 2.20 and my lightly modified/fixed 2.20 (2.21?).
For me, I can just run ln -s SIBOSDK.220 SIBOSDK to swap in Linux. But that might not be the best option for every Linux (or *NIX/macOS) user, and wouldn't work at all for Windows.
Can anyone think of a better way? Script/batch file? Separate #DOSBox configs?
Because my little rat-brain can't help but latch on to projects I shouldn't be doing, I'm currently downloading the source for #MAME so that I can look at the #RS232 code.
Could anyone point me in the general direction of any blogs or docs about this part (devices/bus/rs232) of MAME?
I have absolutely no confidence in me solving my little #DosBox nullmodem challenge. But I'm going to have a look under the hood and see what's there, just in case.
We finished Bureau 13! The most anti-climatic ending I've seen so far. But, oh well. It was a cool game. Lots of replay-ability in it, as you can choose different character combinations. We slayed demons, removed chips off of people's necks, and killed a virtual reality AI monster. Our 13th game completed live! Farewell Bureau 13!