DOS Emulator?

[Harrdy]

That would be something really nice to play with. The "good old" games like Civilisation, Master of Magic and Star Control 2... I think the speed of the console might be good enough for a DOS Emulator, wouldn't it? Maybe it would be possible to convert an existing emulator to the GP32?
(sorry for my english, I am no native speaker)

PeAcE

 

[Mindar]

That would be something really nice to play with. The "good old" games like Civilisation, Master of Magic and Star Control 2... I think the speed of the console might be good enough for a DOS Emulator, wouldn't it? Maybe it would be possible to convert an existing emulator to the GP32?
(sorry for my english, I am no native speaker)

PeAcE

I would also be fun to play commander keen, monster bash, duke nukem 1,2,&3(not the 3d one), xargon and all those old Epic and Apogee games.

 

[jlebrech]

That would be a x86 emulator, and would be very complicated.

 

[Harrdy]

(sorry for posting into the wrong forum *g*)

Well, as I said, there are some emulators already avaliable...

To name but two:
bochs http://bochs.sourceforge.net/
dosbox http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/

As they are open source I think it would not be the main problem to code but if it get's fast enough... but I am no programmer (just scripter *g*), so I cannot tell what ist possible and what isn't.

PeAcE

 

[Sonic-NKT]

when its possible to port, then with dosbox or dosemu (both opensource) bochs is toooooo sloooooooowwwww. Even on my AthlonXP 2000+ its damn slow, but the other dos emus are OK.
Perhaps someone can try a basic port and look if its possible or not.

 

[Harrdy]

Of course it would be unwise to try some (modern) 3D Ego-Shooter with an DOS Emulator, but I would be more interrested in getting some of the older strategy games to run on the GP32... I haven't found any decent strategy games for the GP32, so maybe I'm not looking in the right direction or sadly ther aren't any.

However, these old games like Civilisation, Master of Orion, Star Control 2 and Master of Magic could be played on 286/386 PCs without problems, so I hope an DOS Emulator might be fast enough to let me play these classics... again

PeAcE

 

[RobertG]

An x86 emulator should be doable.. The wonderswan emulator is already kinda doing it.

 

[smash]

is whatever the wonder swan operates on related to dos? or is the hardware smiler? sorry... i know this has nothing to do with the gp32...

 

[RobertG]

The Wonderswan cpu is a 16bit x86. The Wonderswan dev kit is a standard borland turbo C (or LCC you get both), and a exe2wsc program that sticks a wonderswan header onto the compiled binary.

You can use any 16 bit PC compiler to make Wonderswan stuff, pretty much all compilers should have a 16bit option I think.

But there's no dos stuff on the Wonderswan, no.

 

[Swiss_Cheeseman]

I once found a x86 emulator for the Pocket PC, however, it was quite slow, and only ran CGA games and stuff, but a good achievement.

 

[noshir]

it would be great really

i had exactly the same idea while reading a topic about porting keen to gp32 B)

 

[Arutha]

The idea has been bounced around a lot, it isn't new by any means. Unfortunately, it also isn't that easy, but I hope someone will feel up to the challenge.

 

[MrT]

I believe this is very "do-able"

Whether a port of DOSbox or similar or a straight code, I am not too sure, but the early PC games (Pre 3D graphics cards) that could potentially be played on this makes the mouth water.

I am not too sure if someone will have to really get a grip on the machine before starting or if they'll just be able to jump straight in and code away.

This may not be true speed, but for games like Civ this may be a dream come true.

Wiping out the Aztecs on the bus! or re-colonizing the Americas again.

I hope someone takes up the challenge, it'll not be me, I can not even port DOOM



MrT

 

[Sonic-NKT]

hmm i tested some of them:
Dosbox
Bochs
Dosemu

Dosbox:
The fastes one ive tested, also verry good sound quality through Sounblaster Emulation. (it is made for gaming) But only plays old dos games which dont use protected mode, Games like Duke Nukem 3D or Doom dont work. But i played Monkey Island 1 and 2, Monster Bash, Commander Keen 1 + 2, Wolfenstein 3D and Epic Pinball on it, they work fantastic.
I think this would be the best one to port

Bochs:
Bochs is a complete x86 emu, you can install every kind of system on it Linux, Windows 98 - 2000 and dos, its a bit slow... and very complex... But i think many games should work, cant test so much... I dont think thats thing is good to port!

Dosemu:
Another Dos emulator, and not only for games like Dosbox, its very complex and its almost everything possible with this... like install windows 3.x on it or also network and so thing, but also on this protected mode games usualy dont work. Also i think its a bit slower and harder to port!

at the end, i think dosbox is the thing we or a good coder should try.. it has allready been ported to many systems (linux windows macos beos)
here is the webpage: dosbox.sourceforge.net

the only bad thing is, that for all of them a keyboard is a must have! i dont know a way to use dos without a keyboard
so first get keyboard working and then the dosemu

BYE

 

[Rico]

Or have a virtual keyboard. It wouldn't be hard to have assignable keys + a pop-up keyboard.

/me is looking at dosbox source

 

[Sonic-NKT]

ok if its doable (virtual keyboard)
i also found out that dosbox is also a x86 emu but with a dos in the program... but anyway its the fastest on my pc...

let us know what you think rico!

BYE

 

[Esn]

The keyboard thing shouldn't be too much of a problem; very few DOS games used any more keys than the arrow keys and a few others.
So a GP32 DOS emulator would need the function to assign keys like "ctrl, alt, space, shift, enter" (the most commonly used) to "a,b,select, L, R"
If any more are needed, a programmer could add in a function to pause the emulator with the "start" button (as it's the most inacessable button when playing) and have a virtual keyboard show up.

P.S. Wish you all the best, Rico.

 

[Rico]

The code is split across tons of files. It'll be a long port. Unfortunately I can't do it at the moment, I'm busy with other projects, and exams...but if nobody else does it I'm sure I'd have a try soon enough..

- Rico

 

[Sonic-NKT]

that are good news
hope it doesnt take too long until you or someone else start this.

What do you think about the requirements of the emu, do you found out a bit about it, i could test it also on a 300Mhz but nothing lesser (have an old 486 but only with dos : ) )
THANKS

bye

 

[khephren]

There's already a DOS emulator for Psion machines, which run on ARM chips the same as the GP. wouldn't take much to port it. I reckon you could get a high 386SX out of the GP. All though frankly, the thought of DOS on a keyboardless machine leaves me cold.