i bet you ran it the first time inside dosbox. post the batch file.

This forum is for emulating old Macs, not for DOSBox on Macs. You should ask in the DOSBox forum.

[Thread moved to DOSBox Games/Apps. Section]

Content of the batch file please and all your mounting commands

it looks like:

- he forgot the "@" in the echo off statement which suppressed error messages
- started dosbox from within the batchfile
- dropped back to the prompt after exiting dosbox.

I copied all the image files and the LOOKAT program into the same directory/folder as DOSBox.

Okay... Now here's how you're supposed to use DOSBox.
Create a folder on your harddrive. I use C:\DOS.
Place everything you want DOSBox to have access to in that folder.
Start DOSBox and type:
MOUNT C C:\DOS -t dir
C:
LOOKAT.BAT
The DOSBox program should not be in the same folder you're mounting.

Or, on the Mac, create a folder 'DOSGAMES' inside your documents folder, move the LOOKAT folder or content to that folder, and inside DOSBox, type 'mount c ~/DOSGAMES/",
where ~ represents your user's folder.

Hi everyone. Thanks so much for the feedback. Sorry for the delayed reply - my username and password wouldn't let me back in after I started this topic.

I've tried all the suggestions you guys posted and nothing seems to work. I'm able to mount a C: drive to the folder on my Mac that has the lookat.bat file and all the images I want to view, but the lookat.bat file still won't run.

Originally I'd had DOSBox and the lookat.bat file in the same folder and since that didn't work I moved the files and lookat.bat to my /users/me/dosprogs folder. Still wouldn't run.

One of you suggested I post the contents of the lookat.bat file. Here it is:

echo off
REM This is a batch file to invoke PBO:
REM ***\MVDI +p***\MVDI.PLP ***\ega640e.scr ***\PBO %1
REM replace the "***" with the path to the files.

REM This will invoke PBO from its directory, only.
MVDI +pMVDI.PLP vga640.scr PBO %1

Hope this helps - this is really frustrating since the lookat.bat file did run once.

Don't you need a target for the viewer?

I don't think so. I believe all I had to do was type "lookat" and the utility will display one file after the other. If it's any help, here's a screenshot of the directory of files.

Two things:

First, why does the title bar in your screenshots show the active program as "COMMAND"? Normally it should show DOSBOX as the active program when you're sitting at a shell prompt. Are you running COMMAND.COM from real MS-DOS? Not sure if that works well... at any rate, try eliminating whatever alternate shell you're using.

Second, maybe the program doesn't like being in the root. Try putting all of the files in a subdir and then change to that subdir before running the program. I guess it would be in something like /users/me/dosprogs/lookat in your case, then mount the dosprogs folder as before and use a "cd lookat" command to change to the subdir in DOSBox.

No idea about the title bar display. I'm not running any kind of shell. I'm on a Mac, and I'm only running the DOSBox app as it was intended for Mac. Nothing else. I'll give the subdir a try and see what happens.

Are there any other Mac users that see "Progam: COMMAND" when sitting at a shell prompt in DOSBox? Maybe there's some platform thing that happens for Macs that isn't apparent from the source code, but I'd like to know about it if so.

There is a variable in the DOSBox source called "RunningProgram" that is shown on the title bar, and it defaults to "DOSBOX" when at a shell prompt, but changes when a program is executed. It appears that you're either using a build of modified source, or you're somehow running a shell program, probably COMMAND.COM, although I don't see how that could happen without you consciously doing so.

Was this screenshot taken after running lookat ?
(as mvpi might do some shellout/crash to shell which causes the command.com as current program.

Going by the first screenshot, I'd guess you're right that it is running a subshell, as that would account for the DOSBox welcome banner appearing like that.

Not sure about a subshell - I just run the app and know nothing about programming.

It appears that the title bar switches to Program: COMMAND after I mount a C drive.

@ripsaw8080: putting the lookat files in a subfolder and mounting a c:drive to that folder didn't allow the program to run either.

I'm baffled, especially since "lookat" file ran once and showed me all the graphics files. I can't seem to re-create the scenario that allowed it to run once.

Would anyone be willing to play with "lookat" and the other files if I attach everythign in a zip archive?

Does it work if you specify a file? Something like: lookat ibm10

Since the image files appear to have no extensions, maybe: lookat *.

Reinstall the application. If it worked the first time it will work the same if you stick to the mountings and have the original files.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I tried reinstalling/redownloading the application once before. And i recopied the files over from the CD that they're on. That didn't help either.

I also tried the lookat *. command. No results. Also tried lookat with individual files. No results.