Just because older game protections relied heavily on low-level or even undocumented tricks, you will need a crack to bypass the protection, I am afraid. 😖

any idea where to get a crack for such an on game?

NO. We don't endorse illegal activities here. Do not even dare to ask such things again. Thank you. 😒

I have a fully licensed and original copy of this game.
How is that illegal??
just want to get a legitimate copy of an old game working on a newer machine.

I think you misunderstood me. Owning an original game SHOULD entice you to make a backup copy, but that may be subject to change and it may depend on your country's laws. Anyway, just check for a crack elsewhere on the net. It shouldn't be that hard to find. Good luck. We are not held responsible for your conscience, though.

PS - I hope you catch my "drift" about this matter...

I say it again: We don't endorse crack/warez/abandonware or the such here. I hope you understand. We cannot provide you with a crack because THERE AREN'T ANY OF THEM HERE.

(since the question is about labels and low-level disk support in DOSBox I am moving it to the DOSBox Games/Apps secion)

steven wrote:

I am trying to run MPS M1 tank platoon (version 1) and the game loads to a point where it asks for the original disk to be inser […]
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I am trying to run MPS M1 tank platoon (version 1) and the game loads to a point where it asks for the original disk to be inserted.

When I tell the game it is in A drive, the fdd light does nothing, so I presume that dosbox is not giving tank platoon full access to the fdd.

<snip>

I have already unsuccessfully tried mounting the drive with the "-t floppy"

Any other suggestions to improve dosbox's ability to recognise the key disk feature??

steven, have your tried making an image of the diskette and use that with the imgmount command?

Alternatively, you could try going the whole ½ mile, and use boot and imgmount to start a real MS-DOS (or FreeDOS) session.

This problem is really a DOSBox problem. I have a similar problem using dBase IV applications (DOSBox is much nicer to look at on a Windows system than the default Windows DOS box). dBase is free to access any and all drives on a system, but DOSBox is not so adept at accessing other drives. Perhaps DOSBox will improve its disk access eventually
🙄