Skeezix- DOS emulator


ldaneels

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Joined
Mar 9, 2003
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169
Hi,
it seems it will unclog the xcade thread.
Your idea about a DOS emulator would be absolutely awesome. There are so many great games for DOS.
Wizardry is indeed a great series & would definitely make a DOS emulator worth it.
But don't forget Ultima, Bard's tale, Might & magic, Magic candle, Bloodwych, SSI series, and so on...
And that's only the RPGs !
A good way to sink hours into my GP32 !
If anything, thanks for making me dream.

Loic
 
I know what you mean... many many games of amazingness for DOS... but someone's got to write an x86 emu first, before we head in that direction. And so far no-one has... (although many have postulated that it might be possible).

I don't suppose there's any volunteers, are there? No? Oh well... maybe one day...
 
A good DOS emulator already exists; DOSBox is quite solid, and is available for Windows, Linux, BSD, etc etc. I've run Wizardry 7 in it recently.. emulated Adlib and everything.

I imagine it would port well to GP32, though the GP would cramp it. a lot for RAM. ie: Eye of the Beholder.. VGA. I wonder what scree reoslution it used? Where these 320x200 or 640x480x256? VGA is 640x480.. EGA/CGA games just sucked.

So we'd have to show every other pixel in both axis to get it to fit on 320x240 screen, which could make things rough.. or have a scrolling screen, which would suck.

God knows how fast it woudl run.. anyone got a crappy old PC to try it on and see how it goes and if its eorth doing?

I'm also thinking Atari ST, since it was 320x200x16 for most games, so would port *great* :)

jeff
 
A port of Dungeon Master would be ace... I used to play that all the time on my Atari ST.
 
ill say again...WORMS on the GP32 :D And don't say "you can play it on the snes emu" BAH! it doesn't have ninja rope ;)

TFC
 
Well, I believe the better option would be to emulate DOS.. no easy task. That leaves porting an existing DOS emu.

I've heard of DOS box, I wonder if the source is available....

Oh, and most old dos games that I remember playing on my 386DX-40 were at the standard VGA resolution of 320x200. There were some 640x480 SVGA games appearing later and EGA too was frequently used in the higher resolutions (though at 16 colors or less).
 
ATARI ST _ PLLLLLLLLLLLLLEASSEEEE!!

Would love an atari st emulator - this would be just the ticket for me.!
 
One other thing I forgot to moan and groan about.. :)

Adlib... I really wonder if it would be possible to support that. It'd be like running an emulator inside an emulator. Wav, sure....

Course, somebody could nab the official sources for FreeDOS and compile it natively for ARM7... :)

(somebody???)
 
esoteric_ posted on Apr 2 2003 said:
One other thing I forgot to moan and groan about.. :)

Adlib... I really wonder if it would be possible to support that. It'd be like running an emulator inside an emulator. Wav, sure....

Course, somebody could nab the official sources for FreeDOS and compile it natively for ARM7... :)

(somebody???)
FreeDOS wouldn't do it; you need to emulate the x86 processor, and the basic machine specs. DOSBox is ideal.. it emulates the PC.. x86 processor, adlib, floppy drives, hard drives, etc. Perfect.

Adlib is just a sound card plugge dinto the PC expansion port, that follows basic rules; emulating Adlib isnt' so hard, and isn't an emu within an emu.. an adlib sound card is the same a sa procerssor.. just another piece of the system you'd want to emulate.

VGA is 320x200x16.. that'd rock pretty good then :)

jeff
 
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Yep... Dosbox would be kinda good... BUT

and it really is a biiiiig but

Someone still has to decide to port it; its all very well us all saying it'd be good, but unless someone actually decides to take the project up, its not going to take off...
... at this stage, I'd like to say that if I knew more than about 3 lines of C, I'd take it up and see what came out... but I don't, so I can't...

...Anyone else?
 
Awww well... we have skeezix here who wants to port it (THAAAAANKS A LOT :))
And as we have seen at XCade, he's one of the guys who can definately do this :))

Yeeeehaaa :D
 
Sheesh, I mentioned the exact same idea twice in the "cool ideas & other wishes" board and it didn't get much attention, and now suddenly everyone's interested. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I don't think that DOSBox will work well... It requires at least 400Mhz MINIMUM. My computer is a lousy 200Mhz :lol: ; I tried running games with DOSBox and they ran two times slower than they should have. GP will be even worse, probably, at 133Mhz...

Perhaps PocketDOS is a better candidate http://www.pocketdos.com
It runs on PDAs, which are closer to GP32 in hardware.
Check this thread: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?act=ST&f=13&t=393 (it's near the end)

i'm still not sure what's the minimum Mhz requirement for PocketDOS, though, but... well I don't know much about PDAs, but they're not that speedy, are they? :unsure:
 
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PocketDOS would prolly be a good bet, yeah, although PDAs are usually ~200 MHz machines, so there s still a speed difference. Still, not as much as 400 --> 133, so could well be ok. With a load of optimisation, at least.
And of course, it also depends on what you're trying to run on it (or I assume it does... I can't believe that trying to run Tyrian on it would be equally difficult as running, say, Commander Keen or Mars 1... or even Sopwith).
I think it'd be perfectly doable, but I couldn't do it...
 
PocketDos is not very likely. It's a commercial product and it requires Microsoft Windows CE, Pocket PC, Pocket PC 2002, or Handheld PC 2000 Operating System.

One way it might work is if Firefly (author of the Geepee32-emulator) is successfull in porting Windows CE to the GP32. That might enable you to install Pocketdos onto the GP32 and run PocketDos.

And when it comes to speed "PocketDOS emulates an 80186 processor in software. On a 206Mhz ARM processor, it reaches the equivalent speed of a 20Mhz 80186 (or 10Mhz 80386) processor. " it is not all that impressive and since it is closed source there is no way of optimizing it for the GP32.
 
... and don't forget that you can't compare a 400 MHz PC machine with a 133 MHz RISC Machine...
The MHz only help when using the same type processor, and the GP32 has a completely different processor than a PC,
so you can't say anything about the possible speed...
 
my vote is for Atari ST.

I can code so I would volunteer to help Jeff. I don't have an amzing amoutn of free time having just started a new job, so can't consider the port of Castway, CastCE, or similar, single handed.
 
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