Unearthed my #qbasic solitaire implementation (all ASCII) for #msdos that had an autoplay feature. The source and docs are on #codeberg; an exe is also available for #dosbox .

https://codeberg.org/csirmaz/BasicSolitaire

#retrogaming #retrocomputing

Hey, #DosBox fans! Do you have a clue, why #NortonCommander 5.5 always throws the error "Can't open C:\NC5\ansi2858.set" when i try to open a file via F3 (View)? Indeed, this file is not there and also not included in the setup disks. When i click "OK" it works flawlessly.
Other installations of NC Versions 4, 3 and 1 don't throw this error. What am i missing? Research for "ansi2858.set" did give me nearly no results.

#DOS

Mein erster #Computer damals® vor ~36 Jahren lief unter #DOS. Später dann irgendwann #Windows, von Win 3.11 bis Win XP. Seit rund 18 Jahren nun nutze ich ausschließlich #Linux. 🖖

Vor ein paar Wochen habe ich #DosBox installiert und lebe mit wachsender Begeisterung einen "#Nostalgie-Kick" aus. Alte Programme installieren, konfigurieren, Zocken, Batchdateien schreiben - jede Menge Spaß. 🥳
Und immer, wenn ich dann wieder auf dem Linux Desktop lande, fühlt es sich irgendwie „falsch” an. 😎

Today I migrated the customer database of my family's business from a #WindowsXP Intel Pentium 2 machine to a #Debian 13 #Trixie Intel 7th gen i5 machine.

The programs used remained the same. #RWFakt needed #DosBOX though, but was smooth ootb. #Fakturama was kept on the last v1, because of update issues to v2.

The goal of this switch will be encrypted off-site backups one day.

Ich müsste ja eigentlich... aber das lief gestern ab irgendwann nicht mehr so gut...

...aber wie #Porno meine #DosBox jetzt ist... war es doppelt und dreifach wert... einen völlig kaputten Schlafrhythmus zu haben... und ich habe mit 35 Jahren Verzögerung nen Seriennummern-Generator für AshtonTates Framework IV geschrieben... und überhaupt bin ich total bescheuert... AHHHHHHH...🙈

#AuDHS im #Sommer unterm #Dach🛖 ☀️ ... 🥵

Lesser known but awesome DOS software (part 2):

PED - Pliable Editor (1.5)

via @internetarchive : https://archive.org/details/PED15_ZIP

* Esc menu hotkey
* Status bar with clock
* Reasonably configurable

Above average functionality and seemless context switching; a good compromise between hotkey and menu-based editing.
Presumably written in 1988, this is a programming editor ahead of its time.

#DOS #MSDOS #DOSBOX #FreeDOS

Couldn't get #Amerzone (1999, not the remaster) working with #Proton. Tried everything and still a buggy experience.

So I "found" the original game installer (I paid for the game on GOG, so I feel this is okay) and installed it in #Windows98, via #DOSBox pure, via #RetroArch. There are 4 cds which the game requires to be present at different times (the first obviously to run the game) so it was just a matter of making an .m3u file for RA to load, pointing at the .cue files.

Works very well!

Lesser known but awesome DOS software (part 1):

3DMenu Plus (1.0)

via @internetarchive : https://archive.org/details/3DMENUPLUSDOS

* Nine item, four level configurable menu
* Clever internal and external design
* Makes good use of screen estate

I wish I had this smooth and intuitive terminal menu and program starter back in the day. This software from 1989 can teach modern user interfaces quite a lot in terms of usability.

#DOS #MSDOS #DOSBOX #FreeDOS

Lately I've been working on trying to add some speed / performance hacks to #DOSBox. The idea is a bit similar to the old DOSIDLE.EXE / POWER.EXE TSRs: detect when the system is idle or busy-looping, and give up the rest of the CPU cycles until something interesting happens (next frame, next BIOS tick, whatever).

There are a bunch of timing sources on the IBM PC and it's tricky to get them all, but as a proof of concept - here's the delay loop from GORILLA.BAS:

'Rest:
' pauses the program
SUB Rest (t#)
s# = TIMER
t2# = MachSpeed * t# / SPEEDCONST
DO
LOOP UNTIL TIMER - s# > t2#
END SUB

So, it busy-loops until the timer tick. In DOSBox I modified the BIOS INT 1A handler so that if the emulated machine requests the time twice and the same tick comes up, it's probably spinning, so I take away all the remaining cycle budget and sleep instead. And it actually works! Host CPU usage drops significantly - or, if you put it in Turbo Mode, the game plays WAY faster!