There are russian and other language packs that seem to have
everything translated, don't know how that works though.

The readme and other external files should make no problems,
yet the dosbox internal messages are required to use cp437
characters.

Sorry for writing it in Polish but since the problem exists only for Poles then, you know. So here it is.

Witam,
Mam straszliwy problem z polskim ukladem klawiatury od dosbox.
Probowałem uzyć keyb.com z freedos'a ale cosik nie dzialai zamiast polskich znakow dostaje jakies dziwne krzaki.
Probowalem innych ukladow klawiatury i na przyklad jezyk niemiecki dziala bez zarzutu.
Jesli komus z was udalo sie ten problem rozwiazać to bardzo prosze o instrukcje.
Nie uzywam Dosboxa do gier ale do powarznej pracy (no moze bede uzywal bo na razie nie dziala 😀 )

marcinrobak (a t)poczta.onet.pl
HELP

> but since the problem exists only for Poles then, you know.

I suppose it applies to other languages as well. In general it'd be nice
especially when other people search the forum if their question has
already been answered, thus writing in english greatly helps.

You're right 😀

So, briefly, the problem is that I have difficulties with applying polish (programmers) keboard layout into Dosbox.
I've tried keyb.com from freedos but all I get ree some strange characters.
Then I tried to find out if it works at all and applied German layout and it worked fine.
I have also tried some other kbrd drivers available at freedos/keyb site but one worked.
I want to (if possible) use dosbox for some accounting programme but unfortunately without Polish letters it doesn't make sense.
So, now, after forcing me to write English, can anyone help me solve the problem.
If there is anyone who managed to solve it please contact me or just put the solution here so everyone could get hepful hand.

marcinrobak (a t ) poczta.onet.pl

In the above message there are some mistakes.
My fingers are too fast for my keyboard 😀

'none worked' instead of 'one worked'

there are some others also

Basically you need something that changes the codepage, like the
old mode.com, which loads the different charset into the text char
generator. Then you can use keyb.com or whatever to type those
special letters and the program should work as well.

Don't know if the mode.com from freedos works together with dosbox
in this regard, maybe somebody else already tried (or knows a
different program that works).

Well,

I have just tried to follow your instruction but it seems to be to hard for me (I'm not fluent on dos, let alone freedos) I downloaded mode.com from fdos site (and some other files), read manuals, tried and still nothing.
I think that with this problem I would need something more like a manual describing things step by step (also links to the files needed would be helpfull).
So if there is anyone able to help I'm all yours.

To be honest, I don't understand why evryone says "use keyb.com" from freedos and that's all. Just as if it was a piece of cake. Well guys, it is definately not.

If it works with German then why Polish is a problem, or maybe it's just me?
Anyway thanks for the efort.

> If it works with German then why Polish is a problem

Well all german characters are present in cp437 already, and i guess
the polish ones aren't. Will see if i get something that looks like Polish 😀

Some of the characters seem to be cp852 only (Latin-2 Eastern Europe),
thus keyb alone does not work.

In general the procedure for code page changes using the freedos
utilities looks like:
display CON=(VGA,852,2)
mode con cp prep=((852) ega.cpx)
mode con cp sel=852
keyb pl

Yet it looks like the codepage isn't changed, at least it wasn't
for some other layout i tried.

edi18028 wrote:

I translate DOSBox on polish and when i checked how it's look like I saw bushes instead polish letters. How could I fix it? I try diffrent coding and didn't work.

You would need to change codepage to whatever one you use.
Ages ago I wrote some simple program in turbopascal that modifies the matrics of characters in the ega compatible graphic card to add polish characters. It works under dosbox. 😀
Check attached zip file. polega.exe changes to mazowia standard, polega_w.exe to 852 codepage (Central Europe). This program however is not resident and after each change of displaymode (like from graphic mode to text mode) original characters are restored.

Anyway you can put polega_w.exe into autoexec section in the config file and it should work (unless you foolishly translated DOSBox using Windows 1250 codepage which is used only in Windows GUI applications).

😀

So, the procedure with display, mode, keyb (by wd) does not work. I mean it looks like it should, but it dooesn't.
I dont realy get all those mazovia, 852 cp etc. things, so maybe the problem is my understanding.

An now few words about Megablast's "polega" file.
IT WORKS PERFECTLY (at least until displaymode changes) - good job, THANKS 😀.

I know that there are some works ongoing regarding implementation of keyboard layouts for variety of languages. Great, keep going, I mean this is something what would push Dosbox into areas diffrent than games (which are also important 😀 ).

Personally I use a Dosbox mode (the one which lets you print using any windows printer installed even if you dont have a LPT port (laptops) - don't remember the name) and with polish keboard added it solved all the problems I had.

Once more, many, many thanks to all of you, great work.

One more thing to wd

I downloaded all the files needed for the instructions from you
display, mode, ega.cpx, and also pl.kl, keyboard.sys from freedos
and applying them step by step works well without any error messages.
Then when I type mode con it says that the cp is changed but I still have no Polish letters.

Anyway, big thanks for the effort.

It's me again 😀

Some update to my previous posts.
The polega, polega_w files does the job well but only after applying wd's instructions (display, mode, keyb).

I thought that it was polega.exe and polega_w.exe files that solved the problem but I forgot that earlier I run those freedos programs according to wd's instruction (so I think it changed cp).

So, if, for some reason, you want to use polish characters with polish keybord layout my advice is:
Follow wd's instruction (few posts above) - the files needed you can download at freedos site (I also attached them to this post)
Then download "polega" files by Megablast (thanks) - available few posts above. Run polega_w.exe (dont know why but you don't have to run polega.exe).

Best way I found was to modify autoexec section to

display CON=(VGA,852,2)
mode con cp prep=((852) ega.cpx)
mode con cp sel=852
keyb pl
polega_w

You are now a happy dosbox user able to use polish letters.

This post is under no condition my experience or knowledge. It is just a compilation of proposals given by wd and MegaBlast (many thanks).
For some reasons none of them works alone but compiled together they does the job.
marcinrobak ( a t ) poczta.onet.pl

Well, the files I provided changes only character matrix, they doesn't change keyboard layout, so you still need to use some keyboard hooking program (like keyb). You need to run only one file, either polega.exe (this changes to mazovia standard) or polega_w (this changes to 852, but only polish letters, I didn't change for other Central European Countrys).

Mazovia was one of many old polish standards used in plain DOS in eighties and early nineties (in that times there were some resident programs that both hooked some keyboard and video/bios interrupts to add custom polish keyboard layout and polish characters, but nowadays this old standards are not used anymore).
However if you have some old text mode program that uses mazovia standard you can use polega.exe.

By the way it should be easy to add custom codepages support for DOSBox. It would be enough that it would allow to load and use custom .FNT file (4kb font 16x8) There are other text modes than 80x25 but this was most often used, so I quess support only for this text mode would be enough.
Currently changing codepages natively by dosbox is not supported.

The mode con cp sel=852 should do the same that the program from
MegaBlast does, obviously it doesn't for some reason. Thus loading
all programs at once should do what is needed, that is change the
codepage number for keyb, change the keyboard layout, and load
the different codepage.
Do you run some windows OS btw.? There might be a simpler solution.

my OS is winXP
and what do you mean by "simpler solution" ?

wd wrote:

The mode con cp sel=852 should do the same that the program from MegaBlast does, obviously it doesn't for some reason.

But which mode? I have old mode.com from some old DOS which under DOBox returns "Incorrect DOS version." and the one from Windows XP cries: "This program cannot be run in DOS mode."

Windows 9x installs support for pl language in console like that:
Config.sys:
device=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1)
Country=048,852,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys

Autoexec.bat:
mode con codepage prepare=((852) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
mode con codepage select=852
keyb pl,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keybrd4.sys

EDIT: Ah mode.com from freedos I'll check it.

EDIT2: I think that either freedos mode.com doesn't have 852 character map or dosbox doesn't support setting codepages the way mode.com does it.
I found somethink like this in dosbox's dos.cpp:
LOG(LOG_DOSMISC,LOG_NORMAL)("DOS:Setting code page table is not supported");

I don't know if this helps with Polish characters, but this is the construct I have in my dosbox.conf/autoexec-section:

1rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
2rem ! Check for FreeDOS Keyboard handler and select an enhanced (/E)
3rem ! Danish (DK) keyboard with codepage 850.
4rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
5
6    if exist C:\FreeDOS\KeyB.Exe C:\FreeDOS\KeyB.Exe DK,850 /E

Perhaps changing the DK to PL, and 850 to 852 will do ..... something?