Compile it yourself. The problem is that the one you downloaded is meant for 10.3+. You should be able to compile it yourself or find another one compiledto work on 10.2.

Thanks, Neowolf!

Ok, I'm a newbie; I've never compiled anything, but I'll give it a shot. Any suggestions as to what compiler to use, perhaps one with a GUI?...

Again, thanks.

DISCLAIMER: I have only compiled DOSBox for Linux, and therefore I'm making a lot of assumptions and there's a tiny chance things could go disasterously wrong. With a bit of luck the processes should be near-identical.

Word of warning; even if you build DOSBox by hand, it's not going to be very nice on a PowerPC machine. I know that without dynamic core, DOSBox on my 1.5GHz x86 (Linux) box is abominable.

Mac OS X comes with a copy of gcc (the GNU compiler collection), just the thing you need to build a copy of DOSBox from source.

To check if it's installed, open Terminal.app. It should look something like this:

1Welcome to Darwin!
2computername:~ user$ 

Now type in "g++" and press Return.

1computername:~ user$ g++
2powerpc-apple-darwin8-g++-4.0.0: no input files
3computername:~ user$

If you get something like the above message, this generally means that gcc and friends are installed, and you should be able to get started. If gcc is not installed, however, you'll get this message:

1computername:~ user$ g++
2-bash: g++: command not found
3computername:~ user$

At which point you'll have to dig through your OS X install CDs for the developer tools.

I don't know much about OS X frameworks (as in, whether it provides just the libraries or the dev header files too), but just in case it might be a nice idea to grab the latest .tar.gz of the SDL source code and build that. The process I'm about to describe should work with building the SDL and DOSBox source codes, just substitute "sourcecode" for the name of the .tar.gz you downloaded. (as DOSBox depends on SDL, you want to build SDL first)

Step 1: Unpack

1computername:~ user$ tar xzf sourcecode.tar.gz
2computername:~ user$ cd sourcecode 
3computername:~/sourcecode user$

First, download the .tar.gz file containing source code to your OS X home folder. As in, the one with an icon of a house. Running the first command from Terminal.app will first extract the .tar.gz archive, and the second command will change folders to the source code directory you just extracted.

Step 2: Configure

1computername:~/sourcecode user$ export CXXFLAGS="-O3 -funroll-all-loops"
2computername:~/sourcecode user$ ./configure --prefix=/usr
3checking build system type... blah blah blah
4...
5config.status: executing depfiles commands
6computername:~/sourcecode user$

The first line turns a couple of basic optimizations on. (I guessed these, if any Mac elitists want to correct me on the proper ones to use I'd be appreciative) The second line runs the "configure" script. Hopefully this makes the compiler adjust itself correctly for your system.

Step 3: BUILD

1computername:~/sourcecode user$ make
2[lots of stuff]
3computername:~/sourcecode user$ 

Now the moment of truth. This should compile SDL/DOSBox in full. If the last line it spits out is soemthing like "make: Leaving directory..." everything has gone smashingly. However if there are 3 asterisks (***) after the word "make", then something has cocked up and requires a bit of detective work.

Step 4: Install

1computername:~/sourcecode user$ sudo make install
2Password:
3[lots of stuff]
4computername:~/sourcecode user$ 

Last step. The sudo command allows you to perform the following command as the root user (which isn't available by default in OS X). As long as your user account is an administration one, it should be able to use sudo. Simply type in your user password at the prompt, and it should install binaries in the appropriate spots.

Congratulations, you've compiled DOSBox. You can run it from the command line now by typing:

1computername:~ user$ dosbox
2CONFIG: Using default settings. Create a configfile to change them
3...

And the DOS shell should appear. See? It's a total cakewalk when you know how ;p

I'd highly advise you try to look for a precompiled binary then honestly. A gui you're not gonna get. You can try this one, it's a front end and binary in one and I think it'll work in 10.2 http://web.jet.es/guilly/slouc/software_petitdosbox.html

Wow. Thanks Nsmco--

This will certainly keep me busy and learning. I'll definitely keep these instructions for my foray into compiling. I appreciate you going to such trouble to outline all of the steps for me. This forum is great!

Thanks Neowolf--

I tried this front end, but it didn't work. I think it's because it includes v0.63 built in. I'm going to try to get an earlier version, and direct it to use that version instead. If that doesn't work, I'll just have to dive in and use Nsmcovox's instructions; hopefully I know enough not to break something else! 😉

thanks, guys