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First post, by Paolo_R

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I am trying to run an app which requires a a DOS memory manager be loaded e.g. EMM386, QEMM. So I might, for example, need the following environment:

MS DOS 5 / EMM386 - CONFIG.SYS

DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=50
BUFFERS=5
STACKS=0,0
BREAK=ON

MS DOS 5 / EMM386 - AUTOEXEC.BAT

PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\;C:\DOSBOX

LH BTRIEVE /E /M:48 /P:4096 /T:\CLARION3\CLARION.TRN
LH MOUSE
LH DOSKEY

I know I can use some statements in the [autoexec] section of dosbox.conf but is there any way I can emulate the above environment?

Reply 4 of 9, by Paolo_R

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TeaRex: thanks. Is there any info any where about the 'virtual' settings or commands implemented by :

xms=true - presumably DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
umb=true - presumably DOS=HIGH,UMB
ems=false - presumably DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS

What about emulating:

CONFIG.SYS:
FILES=50
BUFFERS=5
STACKS=0,0

and

AUTOEXEC.BAT:
LH BTRIEVE /E /M:48 /P:4096 /T:\CLARION3\CLARION.TRN
LH MOUSE
LH DOSKEY

Thanks.

Reply 5 of 9, by eL_PuSHeR

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You should also try putting a bogus CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files at the root folder of mounted drive.

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Reply 6 of 9, by TeaRex

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Paolo_R wrote:
What about emulating: […]
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What about emulating:

CONFIG.SYS:
FILES=50
BUFFERS=5
STACKS=0,0

and

AUTOEXEC.BAT:
LH BTRIEVE /E /M:48 /P:4096 /T:\CLARION3\CLARION.TRN
LH MOUSE
LH DOSKEY

I don't know what the BTRIEVE command does. Everything else is not needed since DOSBox already has enough FILES, wastes no space on BUFFERS and STACKS, and has a MOUSE driver and DOSKEY style command line editing built-in.

umb=true basically simulates the combination of EMM386 NOEMS and DOS=UMB. You need both in real DOS to get UMB support, although you can use e.g. UMBPCI instead of EMM386 (pickier on hardware, but better software compatibility). ems=false corresponds to the NOEMS option, although NOT loading EMM386 at all would also correspond to ems=false.

Note that the need for UMBs is much less in DOSBox compared to real DOS, as they're mostly used to "LH" drivers into, and as said above most of the more common drivers are built-in with DOSBox and don't take up any emulated memory. So you have enough free memory even without all these DOS memory management shenanigans of unhappy memory.

tearex

Reply 7 of 9, by ripsaw8080

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Btrieve is a database backend, and Clarion is a DBMS. The app may require file sharing and record locking, as is common for database apps, and official DOSBox does not provide these things; although there may be modified builds that include the functionality.