mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

It would actually be kinda cool if there was a custom build of DosBox designed specifically for running Win95.

1) It doesn't seem to be necessary. Windows 95 under DOSBox works great for me!

and

2) There is one! jDosbox is a Java port of DOSBox. The author tests each commit for compatibility with Windows 3.1x, and he has even gotten it to boot Windows 98.

Note: please don't ask for that functionality to be merged into DOSBox. Java is a different language from C, it would not be a simple matter of dropping in the code.

DOSGuy wrote:

The author tests each commit for compatibility with Windows 3.1x

Windows 3.1x support is a very different (and apparently much simpler) thing compared to Win9x support

and he has even gotten it to boot Windows 98.

Regular DOSBox does that too, if some threads here are to be believed. Of course I wouldn't know for sure, but I doubt this jDOSBox does it much better.

If you just want to "believe" I'll post pictures of nt4 in dosbox.

if you do that, you'll open the pandora's box of "IT Professionals" that suddenly think how DOSBox is important for the backbone of their infrastructure.

Interesting. I wonder why Windows 98 would boot in DOSBox when Windows 95B and C have failed me for so many years.

At any rate, the author of jDosbox is incorporating stuff from Megabuild 6, and generally trying to get it to run as much stuff as possible.

leileilol wrote:

if you do that, you'll open the pandora's box of "IT Professionals" that suddenly think how DOSBox is important for the backbone of their infrastructure.

Well, I have to confess that I have used it for years to run WordStar. It is my editor of choice. "pry from my cold, dead hands" and all that.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

DOSGuy wrote:

Interesting. I wonder why Windows 98 would boot in DOSBox when Windows 95B and C have failed me for so many years.

At any rate, the author of jDosbox is incorporating stuff from Megabuild 6, and generally trying to get it to run as much stuff as possible.

So someone is creating a build that's good for apps as well as games? That has the potential to steal a lot of users/contributors away from the main development effort if this new build is not geared strictly toward games but emulates a full DOS environment.

I think you guys should ask the jdosbox dev what his goal is instead of making assumptions.

AFAIK he is "just" porting DOSBox to java....and he's just one guy. How anyone would think he alone is going to take on the task of supporting what DOSBox will not is just crazy talk.

Also this thread is off topic.

Yes, let's not get carried away. He's only porting DOSBox to Java. The extent to which he's "generally trying to get it to run as much stuff as possible" is that he's including some of the extra stuff from Megabuild 6, and he's making sure that it runs unofficially supported stuff like Windows 98. Apparently DOSBox can handle Windows 98, so this isn't about creating additional functionality, but ensuring the completeness and quality of his port.

Okay, so I had an idea for CD-ROM support that doesn't require the devs to do anything. I was trying to play a game that requires the CD to be in the CD-ROM drive, but there's no way to bring an IMGMOUNTed ISO with you when you BOOT from the Win95 image file. What you can do is install a Win9x virtual CD-ROM program, copy the ISO to the Win95 image file and go for a walk (this will take a very long time -- about 200 KBps on my computer -- and slow your system to a crawl).

The only downside to this is that I used a 500 MB hard drive image for Windows 95 because that's supposed to be the largest drive that DOSBox supports (I think there are builds that support larger drives). Even if you create a second 500 MB hard drive for your ISO to mount as D:, CDs can can get as large as 650 MB. The game I want to play is only 350 MB, so this isn't a problem for me.

So far MagicISO has failed to install and Virtual CloneDrive failed to run after installation due to missing DLLs (both require Windows 98 ). Virtual Drive Creator also failed despite requiring "Win9x", even after I provided the missing DLLs: msvbvm60.dll, oleaut32.dll, and scrrun.dll (this one seems to be the problem).

That's where I'm at for now. Any suggestions for Windows 95-compatible virtual CD-ROM program?

So, is there any way for IMGMOUNT and BOOT to work together, like if you mounted an iso of a Win95 game and then booted from a Win95 hard drive image to run said game? 🤣

No.

If so, then why not? Do they conflict or something?

DOSBox doesn't have IDE support.

DOSBox supports 2GB images just fine. Generate the image with HAL9000 megabuild and use the -size parameters that megabuild gives you.

For cd-rom support just emulate a virtual drive. Works fine.

Just to throw my 2 cents in since it came up. I am just one guy, so adding new features to the java dosbox port is slow. My main goal is parity with dosbox, but I also like to have a bit of fun too so that is why I'm bringing in some of the megabox 6 features. For me, I want to use it to play old games, not just DOS games, so its convenient that it can also run Diablo in Windows 98. Currently in svn jdosbox normal core runs Windows 98 as well as MB6 with NE2000 support. So far the only bugs I've seen affect both MB6 and jdosbox where in 32-bit color the console with display black on black text.

Currently I'm working on getting the dynamic caching core up and running with Win98 since Diablo is a bit slow on the normal core. I look forward to seeing if it will be fast enough to be playable. If not then my next project might be a new java core 😀

I've tried booting Windows 98 SE in every major DOSBox build and most of them get nowhere. MB6 was able to get to the desktop briefly before crashing, but only once. Do I need "First Edition"?

Bad luck.