The traditional way would be to use conio.h, but I don't know how you'd go about that in QBasic.

I'd like to know too, since I liked them.

I remember one scriptable install program I forgot the name of, but it was for DOS and Windows 3.1, it parsed the same syntaxes in their scripts, and was used by quite a few companies. No, it isn't Wise or InstallShield. I'll post screenshots of it later.

QBasic would probably be sufficient, I doubt you'd need anything like ANSI since there are dedicated routines for drawing to the screen in text mode.
Progress bars shouldn't be that hard in principle (get total number of bytes to be copied, periodically calculate the % copied so far and output desired number of ASCII #219 block characters)...

Of course you'd need to use DOS-interface routines in order to list drives, create directories, process error codes when opening files etc. (unless you just want to call an existing batch file). I'm sure there are tutorials all over the web though.

There were specific libraries dedicated to writing apps like these... for Borland compilers I know of Turbo Object Toolkit (now freeware) and Turbo Vision, but those would probably be overkill for what you're aiming at.

I think I remember seeing QBasic "compilers" back in the BBS days that converted the files to be a .com (or maybe a .exe?) executable, thus freeing you from having to run qbasic to run the program

I never bothered with it... I got lazy and wrote huge 100k elegant batch files that run so slowly because of so many "IF" and "GOTO" statements! 🤣

when I need to do such "programs" then ANSI/PKZIP/batch commands are my friends... I usually grab some ancient BBS PD ansi art and edit/combine it to suit my taste, kinda lame but it is for personal use...

one can do wonders with batch files and a couple of "helper" programs 😀

edit: also RAR/DOS has a nice install-making script language , you get a taste of it when you install RAR itself, it has bars and everything... get the latest 2.50 DOS version, not a newer... I never bothered to learn it though, so I can't comment if it's easy or not

I have nothing to add to this thread I'm sorry, but I just had to say that the BBS artwork above brought back many happy memories!

Thanks all.

And the BBS-sque graphics do bring fond memories.

Previously I used to create my own batch files with the so many IFs and GOTOs as mentioned too. I even created my OWN batch installers when I found the original install.bat files to be lame or too bland.

Remember those games that force you to go to a hard drive and THEN ask you to press A:INSTALL from there? Or those that force you to enter the drive letter as the parameter? - (INSTALL C: ) Some simply copy the whole files of a floppy disk and does nothing else from just the command prompt screen.

I always have high expectations from programmers who programmed complex graphics and AI routines but feel let down when the install program is nothing but a simple command prompt copy program.

At the other end of the spectrum are the sophisticated and luxurious install routines. Remember the install program for the original Command & Conquer Dos Version? Also Ocean's HOOK adventure game's install program has MIDI music as soon as you enter the install program.

Coming back to topic, I would like to create screens like these :

Of course, my aim is to replace the functions in the boxes to just have dialogues and options to copy (install) the files on to the hard disk.

And wherever possible, if there are simple .CFG or .INI files to store the configurations in text format, I can include some options to append or modify the sound options too.

Currently learning to draw the boxes in QBASIC.

Free Pascal is modern, the DOS version should produce stuff that works under DosBox and includes FreeVision, a TurboVision equivalent and paszlib, a zlib equivalent so you can compress and decompress, also, no need to distribute or ensure whoever uses your installer has additional programs.

The first language i learned was Turbo Pascal. Very good times back then. I remember that i made a program that was an exact copy of Pascal, except that every time someone tried to get some work done it would just produce an error. 😜 It was nice seeing the teacher try to figure out the problem. 😁

This is art ansi:
In ms-dos to run have to load ansi.sys in memory
Typing a line in config.sys:
Devicehigh=ansi.sys
To read an ansi file just use the type command:
type art.ans

A program actual to create this type of art file:

http://picoe.ca/products/pablodraw

It has in YouTube a program to create batch files

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWXbQ_f0JIk

EDIT: just realized the first post is from 2013 😵 In any case, I still would like to find that "Instalit" software!

-----

I also have some weird fascination for installers, DOS installers in particular 😁 . It was the first thing that lead me to pursue a career in programming, along with data compression such as ZIP or ARJ.

If you don't want to learn programming, there were a few commercial & freeware programs that allowed you to create good looking, professional installation routines using only some basic scripting. The best one I can remember is a tool called Instalit, it was used to create the DOS installers for Creative products and some Lucasarts titles such as Tie Fighter or Dark Forces. You can easily identify these installers as they store data in .PVL files.

I've tried to obtain this tool since the mid 90s without success, if anyone knows how/where to get it I would be really happy.

Other than using one of these tools, you can make your own DOS installer yourself if you learn some basic programming (preferably C or Pascal). As others have mentioned, there are libraries that can help you with the graphical stuff and file copying/decompression. I've thought of creating an "installer" that would allow me to browse and install games from CDs were I store floppy images of my games, but never found the time.

Malik wrote:

And I would also love to have the progress bar which coincides with the file transfer status. (I always wondered how they managed that. )

A simple progress bar is quite easy to create and a good exercise if you're learning programming. First you have to solve the issue of drawing/redrawing the progress bar given a currently completed/total ratio. Then, your file copy routine can update the bar by calling this redraw function each time a certain amount of bytes are copied.

Hello 😀
I found an interesting installer:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByM0h5xqi0Y … QVNjMHY5U1FpSXM
(I changed the xmen.rar file for testing)

With an hex editor, We could change the texts and the path for our own needs:

But the install.exe file is "packed". Do you have a suggestion for unpack it? (I tried with upx and unlzexe).

Malik wrote:

Coming back to topic, I would like to create screens like these : […]
Show full quote

Coming back to topic, I would like to create screens like these :

Ah yes, the nostalgic Microprose installation screen, love that too. IIRC such screen could be created using batch command, but I'm not pretty sure.

That's a nice idea. Great 😀 (btw. I only managed to make a ansi-floppy-disk for hercules with a simple batch-menu)

Hello. I found this BAS file for PowerBasic:

(The "intelligent" configurable INSTALL routine by Philip Rougier)

It's very interesting, but it needs to be improved (ex: Use pkunzip, extract files from a zip, etc)

Disclaimer- it wasn't me who necroposted! *Points at Suppawer*

TheMobRules wrote:

EDIT: just realized the first post is from 2013 😵 In any case, I still would like to find that "Instalit" software!

... The best one I can remember is a tool called Instalit, it was used to create the DOS installers for Creative products and some Lucasarts titles such as Tie Fighter or Dark Forces. You can easily identify these installers as they store data in .PVL files.

I've tried to obtain this tool since the mid 90s without success, if anyone knows how/where to get it I would be really happy.

But since I spent my time reading the thread and then googled for this Instalit tool, I wonder if this is what TheMobRules is looking for:

http://annex.retroarchive.org/cdrom/smsw-vol1 … ALIT/index.html

I have an old dos installer system I wrote and messed with over the years.

http://mega-tokyo.com/si103.zip

You can make multifloppy install or large hd install etc.

BloodyCactus wrote:

I have an old dos installer system I wrote and messed with over the years.

http://mega-tokyo.com/si103.zip

You can make multifloppy install or large hd install etc.

Interesting.
Do you have the source code?

keropi wrote:

when I need to do such "programs" then ANSI/PKZIP/batch commands are my friends... I usually grab some ancient BBS PD ansi art a […]
Show full quote

when I need to do such "programs" then ANSI/PKZIP/batch commands are my friends... I usually grab some ancient BBS PD ansi art and edit/combine it to suit my taste, kinda lame but it is for personal use...



one can do wonders with batch files and a couple of "helper" programs 😀
edit: also RAR/DOS has a nice install-making script language , you get a taste of it when you install RAR itself, it has bars and everything... get the latest 2.50 DOS version, not a newer... I never bothered to learn it though, so I can't comment if it's easy or not

That's just beautiful!
I always loved this floppy-images on screen, like on amiga-kickstart 1.3,
or the ansi generated disks from apgogee-installers.

Great stuff 😀