[pb2012129]

Hi,

I made a new overlay with a smaller visual footprint and using less pixels when you need something a bit more subtle or with less contrast. I've repackaged my original high contrast qwerty overlay and GeorgeT93's original in one single package for convenience and to allow switching between them on the PB with minimal effort. See included readme!

Take care!

Balrog

[glamrlama]

Thanks to everyone in this thread. I have "The Perfect General" running on my PB. It is a turn based strategy game. Really the only game/software from the MS-DOS days that I still use. It uses a "code lookup" for copy protection; remember those days? So glad I kept the code book manual! The video glitches occasionally but it does refresh properly when you cursor over the area so no biggie. Thanks all!

[pb2012129]

I had never heard of Perfect General... although I'll concede I'm not that much into hex wargames... I wanted to run Syndicate and also Curse of the Azure Bonds (make sure to modifiy the curse.cfg to point the save games to /curse/save and create the save folder) in Dosbox... so that works for me. Now I managed to run Fallout 1 ( How to run Fallout in DOSBox - Forums ) in dosbox but I find it's a bit on the slow side... so I'd like to tinker with my dosbox-0.74.conf file...

And here's the issue there's really no notepad on the PB. If it's a text file, you can edit it on the fly with Airbrowser but it's a pain to scroll. Otherwise I've tried Bluesomething which is ok but the files need to be in "documents" for the app to see them and for some reason when I modify the dosbox config file dosbox doesn't want to read it after... what is needed is a pure Notepad which has the following simple features:

-word wrap
-open any file extension from anywhere in the dir tree and open as raw text
-save anywhere in the tree
-please make sure the keyboard doesn't pop up/down all the time

I wish someone would code this as it would be immensely useful!

Take care!

update: ironically I found myself using edit.com or pedit.exe to do some text editing lolllll... unfortunately I have to bring the file to my dos virtual partition but at least I get familiar ascii edit, F1 for help, alt w for write and such... pedit allows for tree browsing of files otherwise you have to call the file from the command i.e. edit dosbox-0.74.conf... use [tab] for autocompletion of file names... output seems like it's working...
update2: in the end I'll settle for the good old blue screen edit.exe from ms dos 6.22 here MS-DOS Boot Disk Contents | AllBootDisks - Providing Free Boot Disk Downloads. MS-DOS to Windows XP. - who knew dos could be so helpful!
update3: so I guess I'll automount "documents" and "downloads" in dosbox-0.74.conf so I can browse those "drives" from edit.exe... I'm all set!

[BennyX]

I had never heard of Perfect General... although I'll concede I'm not that much into hex wargames... I wanted to run Syndicate and also Curse of the Azure Bonds

Heh I played Heroes of the Lance, instead, after reading the book it was based on (Dragons of Autumn Twilight). It was literally the only D&D book I ever read, and haven't read another since! Played it on the Atari ST though, so it was probably a bit better than the DOS version. After watching youtube vids of it now, I see that my nostalgia was misplaced, and it was truly an awful game!

[Sonic-NKT]

And here's the issue there's really no notepad on the PB. If it's a text file, you can edit it on the fly with Airbrowser but it's a pain to scroll. Otherwise I've tried Bluesomething which is ok but the files need to be in "documents" for the app to see them and for some reason when I modify the dosbox config file dosbox doesn't want to read it after... what is needed is a pure Notepad which has the following simple features:

-word wrap
-open any file extension from anywhere in the dir tree and open as raw text
-save anywhere in the tree
-please make sure the keyboard doesn't pop up/down all the time

I wish someone would code this as it would be immensely useful!

Click to view quoted image

have you tried ghostcommander, it is a great filemanager with builtin editor and ut worked fine for me with config files

[pb2012129]

@Sonic-NKT
Hey thanks! Indeed this is faster and more interesting than air browser. I just wish it was a native app, yet it's certainly more native than edit.exe, and it's really fast and the edit feature is great. A real nice app! Take care!

@BennyX
Indeed, your nostalgia was misplaced lolll and comparing Heroes to Curse was heresy lolll. You see, Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds were the first games to use branded TSR AD&D rules to power the game... so you had an adventure component with "3d" sort of FPS view and story, then when you had combat this switched to a tactical "isometric" view where turn by turn you'd assign actions i.e. aim, cast, move etc (see Remembered Realms: Revisiting SSI's Legendary Gold Box Games | Armchair Arcade for a good description despite the terrible page encoding). Those games are masterpieces... maybe try one of the 3 similar they made set in the Dragonlance universe ( Champions of Krynn, Death Knights of Krynn, and The Dark Queen of Krynn - they use the same "engine") - I too have read Dragons of Autumn twilight and while I haven't played any of the 3 games extensively I have played Pool and Curse a lot... 20 years ago that is lolll. Cheers!

[damianiw]

Cool just found this and want to try settlers, question I have it running :-)

I downloaded dosbox from appworld, how do I load the overlays onto it so I have the keys I need escape for example

Very nice work guys

[pb2012129]

You can take the file from my post at the top of this page and simply extract it to /misc/dosbox on your device. That's it! You can switch between 3 overlays by renaming the .xml file accordingly (see readme file). All 3 overlays include the escape key. If you swipe from the top from dosbox, you see key placement and can move them around for that session using hold+drag. For permanent positioning, you need to edit the .xml file.

The sdl-controls.xml file is a plain text file. It includes the coordinates of the keys on a 640x480 resolution map and the scancodes which are the codes needed to bring the proper key press. The keys are themselves mostly 20x20px .png graphic files... they can be resized using height/width params in the .xml file. So that means you can make an entire set to your liking, or mix what you have, remove stuff from the .xml file etc. When you look at the file, it's quite self-explanatory...

On page 30, I posted a file that includes a partial list of scancodes I used because I can't find the true USB spec sheet that is supposed to have them on usb.org.

Good luck!

[BennyX]

Hi,

I made a new overlay with a smaller visual footprint and using less pixels when you need something a bit more subtle or with less contrast. I've repackaged my original high contrast qwerty overlay and GeorgeT93's original in one single package for convenience and to allow switching between them on the PB with minimal effort. See included readme!

Take care!

Balrog

Click to view quoted image

nice job! this is very useful! i couldn't have installed a game without the onscreen keyboard today, so this came in very handy, thanks!

[BennyX]

@Sonic-NKT
Hey thanks! Indeed this is faster and more interesting than air browser. I just wish it was a native app, yet it's certainly more native than edit.exe, and it's really fast and the edit feature is great. A real nice app! Take care!

@BennyX
Indeed, your nostalgia was misplaced lolll and comparing Heroes to Curse was heresy lolll. You see, Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds were the first games to use branded TSR AD&D rules to power the game... so you had an adventure component with "3d" sort of FPS view and story, then when you had combat this switched to a tactical "isometric" view where turn by turn you'd assign actions i.e. aim, cast, move etc (see Remembered Realms: Revisiting SSI's Legendary Gold Box Games | Armchair Arcade for a good description despite the terrible page encoding). Those games are masterpieces... maybe try one of the 3 similar they made set in the Dragonlance universe ( Champions of Krynn, Death Knights of Krynn, and The Dark Queen of Krynn - they use the same "engine") - I too have read Dragons of Autumn twilight and while I haven't played any of the 3 games extensively I have played Pool and Curse a lot... 20 years ago that is lolll. Cheers!

Click to view quoted image


Click to view quoted image

I'll look into those games you mentioned. My only problem is I'm not really keen on RPG games to begin with, especially ones that have isometric perspective, lol. Really the only 'rpg'-ish dungeon-wandering game I have ever enjoyed was Dungeon Master, back in 1987 (and its 1989 sequel).

SSI's 'Eye of the Beholder' (which was also an 'Official AD&D Computer Product') looks very similar to Dungeon Master, actually.

Nowadays I wouldn't play games like this because they just seem so primitive, plus my attention span isn't what it used to be, lol

[BennyX]

I got Mortal Kombat Trilogy up and running. Its a bit slow at stock DOSbox settings, though, and I'm not sure what the controls are, lol. Also I don't know if I'm pressing the right on-screen keys to speed up the 'cycles' or skip frames..

I guess it was a good experiment, but I can't really DO anything in it, hahah

I'm sure it runs nicely in the PSX emulator though... but it's not really the type of game that's practical on tablets, what with the need for fast execution of combos and stuff. It's damn hard to play these kinds of games with touchscreen controls...

[BennyX]

Yes, it is true. The greatest DOS game of all is now running on the Playbook!

[glamrlama]

Llamatron is a very good game. Never realized it was available for DOS. I played it on the Amiga extensively. How smooth is it? However I am currently running Robotron 2084 in the PlayStation Emulator. When you start the game on the PS emu it starts an emu to run the original Williams code! Runs so smooth on the PB.

Edit: loaded llamatron on the PB. The sound is very good. The play is just slightly slower than I remember. I need to review this thread and tweak the cycle rate slightly.

[ryacht]

UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE ...

Duke Nukem 3D on DOSBOX. I'm speechless

Not that it's fun to play on PB without real Keyboard ... it's just: it starts in DOSBOX.

What a great emulation. Great to have it on Playbook.

Ray

[damianiw]

I tried using my bold 9900 with the bridge/remote control as a mouse for dosbox

Works ok but the pointer on the playbook screen tracks faster than the dosbox cursor in settlers so it gets to the point where the mouse can't get to the bottom of the screen - not sure if I'd have the same issue with a normal bluetooth mouse ?

[BennyX]

Llamatron is a very good game. Never realized it was available for DOS. I played it on the Amiga extensively. How smooth is it? However I am currently running Robotron 2084 in the PlayStation Emulator. When you start the game on the PS emu it starts an emu to run the original Williams code! Runs so smooth on the PB.

Edit: loaded llamatron on the PB. The sound is very good. The play is just slightly slower than I remember. I need to review this thread and tweak the cycle rate slightly.

Yes it is playing a wee bit slower than I remember. Unfortunately I don't have the registered version that has the Ozric tentacle and supports 386 processors and up (which *could* be why it is running slower). Apparently the developer of Llamatron (Jeff Minter) had problems finding the full version, himself! haha.

I found a place where you can even play it online, via Java: http://www.oldgamz.com/game.php?id=3631 (there's other DOS games on that website too). It's unfortunate the Playbook doesn't support Java. The funny thing is that website is running a version of DOSbox ported over to Java!

Minotron 2012 for iOS is the new 'reimagined version' of classic Llamatron. it looks like pretty much the same game, to me.

[pb2012129]

nice job! this is very useful! i couldn't have installed a game without the onscreen keyboard today, so this came in very handy, thanks!

Hey you're welcome, happy to see it put to good use!

As for RPGs well I understand, to each his style of game - my interest with the gold box series is really about the implementation the AD&D ruleset and tactical turn based combat with full party control and that's why I like it so much. In the end it's a bit a museum as I don't have the resilience I had when I was a kid and could sit down through 8hrs of Pool of Radiance loolll. As for the arcade stuff like Mortak Kombat etc, well what is really needed is MAME, and I found running the old 10 years old dos version inside dosbox to be unsatisfactory to say the least. Compare that to MameReloaded on Android - where even the touch gamepad is amazing... I wish the PB had VLC and MAME - really.

Take care!

[BennyX]

what is really needed is MAME, and I found running the old 10 years old dos version inside dosbox to be unsatisfactory to say the least. Compare that to MameReloaded on Android - where even the touch gamepad is amazing... I wish the PB had VLC and MAME - really.

Yes, those 2 programs would be nice, for sure. I think it just comes down to the Playbook not having a big enough pool of programmers with both the knowledge and interest to port certain apps or games. If that pool was even half the size of Android's we would see a lot more activity.. maybe once BB10 is out, interest will grow, and things will get rolling from there.

I can still follow C code well enough to have a pretty good idea what it's doing, but I lost interest in doing any actual programming years ago. So I'm not of much use in porting anything anywhere, lol.

[AladarMezga]

This is fantastic, thank you for sharing this. I can play my old DOS games.

I used to spends nights playing Elite - Frontier on my first PC with 486 processor (40 Mhz with turbo)

I'd like to add 'Backspace' to this layout, can you tell me how I can find code for this key so I can update the xml file?

[Herve5]

Hello,
I'm considering setting up a Windows 3.1 (or higher?) machine not for gameplay, but for running a proprietary software supplied with a measurement equipment.

the specs are win >=3.1, bluetooth ('serial port service' supported), then the supplier software should take care of downloading all my measurement and exporting it to reasonable formats.

So basically I need to know if, assuming I normally 'pair' my measurement device with the PB, then run DOSBox and launch the provided interface software, the connection will work.
(I also presume adding Win 3.1 in DOSBox is feasible)
Can someone confirm this, since it'll condition all my process change?

Indeed, I own various hardwares that could become field-operated devices if DOSBox actually allows this.
I think there would be a market for a paid, windows-preequipped version in fact. Because USB support is so, er, light with the Playbook, proposing a solution with Bluetooth to handle all these equipments that just come with basic win software interfaces would be great!

thank you, and all the best for DOSBox!
Herv�

[edit] now running Win95 fluently; all I need to know is, if this "bluetooth serial port service" will work... isn't it the same used for a bluetooth keyboard for instance?

[Herve5]

OK, all in all, after the previous post here is where I am:

- Win95 works reasonably well, with some glitches when moving the mouse cursor with the finger -I presume a mouse would do better

- reading the default config file it's easy to add a few lines to mount Win95 then boot, getting a fully automated config (the win machine starts upon clicking on DOSBOX icon)

- the same default file features comm ports that are disabled by default : adding Bluetooth communication (and possibly internet) may be reachable, but not by the newbie I am

- and from the lack of reactions here I feel noone else is interested


So, I'll leave this topic for now; I may come back next year if the DOSBOX app still works on BB10.

Herv�

[damianiw]

Interested in the win95 working as a few apps / games need this

Anyone solve the mouse issue where the bb mouse doesn't match the dos mouse so there are areas of the screen you cannot reach ?

Regards

Damian

[Herve5]

Anyone solve the mouse issue where the bb mouse doesn't match the dos mouse so there are areas of the screen you cannot reach ?

My recipe is ugly, and I'm definitely embarrassed to continue this way a thread describing such a brilliant development, but what I can propose is the following:
- leave the thing start completely, without trying to click every now and then when the Win desktop is not yet displayed (in my case the full boot lasts a bit more than two minutes)
- when everything is there and you can move the mouse cursor, look at which direction it is shifted to (e. g. let's suppose I click/drag at the center of the screen but the arrow is 2cm right of my finger)
- move the cursor towards the edge in this direction (e. g. to the right edge in my example), until it hits the edge
- release finger screen contact, try same move again: in principle you then should "catch" the cursor" on your finger.

Not having an actual mouse I'm not sure this works with one, but I'd try fingering then mouse in such a case...
There may be settings devoted to the mouse in the long config file, but I didn't check.
The above relates to the sideloaded version of DosBox, the one with the keyboard overlay; maybe the 'non-overlay' version in App World behaves differently?
HTH,
Herv�

[must use DOSBOX]

I'm completely new to this as I only learned of DOSBOX yesterday, and I have learned how to access the playbooks C drive files like misc etc. So I go to downloads and see Arena and daggerfall which is what I want to run but it comes up with errors like: cannot be run in dos mode, must be run under win32, also I understand that before you go into the directory of the download folder you're supposed to type CD DOS but it Just says unable to change to Dos. Please reply...MUST PLAY ELDER SCROLLS!!

Correction: have managed to get windows 95, lion king, duke nukem and elder scrolls arena However.... Problems which may have already been addressed but I would be grateful is someone could provide solutions: 1. Could someone please explain the touch. Overlay thing and how to access it, the last two are about arena, on top of the tremendous lag there seems to be no way in attacking, any ideas? I do have a blackberry to link to the playbook...

[steph h]

How do you get them to show up? I put them in the dosbox folders but nothing happened. Help please.