ya actually it wouldn't be very hard to get dosbox to automatically find and mount drivers on it's own it would take like 6 lines of programming at least in visual basic anyway

Dos box could have a line like this in the installer with these basic parameter's:

if cdrom = true then set mount cd as (desired drive letter)
end if

if hardrive = true etc etc

dosbox could automatically change the settings in the config for this on install and it would ask you what to mount the drives too.

It'd make dosbox a hell of a lot more user friendly and all people would have to learn is how to use dos:P

You could also include the line:
mount a a:\ -t floppy

So with all these additions beginners would have much less problems (only the usual DOS related ones) and stop asking the same questions in this forum.
On the other hand these additions wouldn't hinder all the people who like to tweak their settings. 😉 All they would have to do is change/delete four lines in 'dosbox

Good idea, I like it 😀

I like it too. 😀

Anonymous wrote:

On the other hand these additions wouldn't hinder all the people who like to tweak their settings. 😉 All they would have to do is change/delete four lines in 'dosbox

This could also be avoided. There could be a question: Do you want to install DOSBox with the mounting wizard (recommended especially for newbies 😀 ) or without it? With this install improvement would be DOSBox still simple (no bloatware), yet more user friendly.

This is covered other places in the forum and I'm just a user. But here's my opinion. Dosbox runs on various platforms and it seems to me that creating a special setup for this which is different for each platform is fluff that is either not worth the time or not worth the time until that little compatibility graph is full of %100s.

The simple fact of the matter is that we're talking about one very simple command. I mean these fine people give us this great tool for free and we can't even learn to add one command? Reading the whole setup doc only took about 10-15 minutes. And unless your mounting needs change from one run to the next(then make a scipt or bat file to make the switch), you do it once and that's it. Bottom line is you have to read the readme anyway. And once you've done that it's about another minute or 2 of your time to add the mount commands.

On the other hand, one poster stated that it would only take 5 or 6 lines to discover all the mounts in VB, he could make the program on his own to discover the mounts and creat the config file. Then he could give it up and the dosbox people wouldn't be bothered. That be a nice gesture.

-Jason

Anonymous wrote:

Dosbox runs on various platforms and it seems to me that creating a special setup for this which is different for each platform is fluff that is either not worth the time or not worth the time until that little compatibility graph is full of %100s.

Let me guess, you don't use Windows as your operating system.

By the way, DosBox already has a special setup for the different platforms (see the first post for the Windows platform).
And the suggestion was relatively simple, no asking for a fancy GUI or loader or something like that.

I mean these fine people give us this great tool for free and we can't even learn to add one command?

What has the fact, that this (great) software is free to do with the fact, that someone can't learn a command? Nothing!

Reading the whole setup doc only took about 10-15 minutes. And unless your mounting needs change from one run to the next(then make a scipt or bat file to make the switch), you do it once and that's it. Bottom line is you have to read the readme anyway. And once you've done that it's about another minute or 2 of your time to add the mount commands.

In theory you may be right, but in reality, if you read this forum, you see that many people have this problem. And to be honest, the "Readme" could be little bit confusing to someone who has never used DOS before.

I really have the impression, that some people prefer things to be a little bit more complicated.

> And to be honest, the "Readme" could be little bit confusing to someone
> who has never used DOS before.

Well, such a person will have more problems later (mounting is not that difficult). Running DOS games is more complicated than preinstalled applications on newly bought computer with Windows XP !!!
When somebody cannot mount, then I think he should read readme and possible some DOS documentation as well , if it does not understand it, then perhaps ask and if it still does not understand then forget DOSBOX.

I do not think that the goal of DOSBOX should be to be accessible to completely everybody. Certain minimum knowledge/intelligence is required and I think it is ok like that.

Mirek

I think DOSBox should aim to be accessible to DOS gamers (i.e. those who are experienced in running old-school DOS games). I think most of these people would find things like mounting directories/folders as virtual drives to be a simple concept (DOS and even WinXP's command prompt has a command called SUBST that does something similar).

It would be cool though if the Win32 installer for DOSBox would ask what directory/folder your DOS games are in and create a default .conf file with that directory/folder mounted as C:. It wouldn't make a difference to me personally though...

Or download a frontend that creates mounts for you.

mirekluza wrote:

Well, such a person will have more problems later (mounting is not that difficult). Running DOS games is more complicated than preinstalled applications on newly bought computer with Windows XP !!!

This is not true for every DOS game. There were some games that caused a lot of trouble, for expample the CD of Reunion, for which I had to make an extra configuration at that time.

But most games ran pretty easy: install, setup, run the game; the same you would have to do in a Windows Dos environment.
The mounting procedure instead is something extra, which was very seldom used in DOS/Windows (maybe UNIX), so it could cause some confusion, which could easily be avoided with the suggestion of this thread.

I do not think that the goal of DOSBOX should be to be accessible to completely everybody. Certain minimum knowledge/intelligence is required and I think it is ok like that.

Here I must highly disagree. This is an opnion you can read quite often on the net independent of the acutal topic, that some people think that a program/feature/whatever should only be accessible to a select "better" few, an "elite".
The asked-for feature is very little indeed, but sometimes I get the impression that some people prefer things to be complicated just for the reason, that they can get an (knowledge) advantage over other people.

In the old days I was an DOS user myself, but nowadays I can't imagine any legitimate reason, why we shouldn't allow new users to get easily acquainted with the old dos games.

Very often, the same people, who tend to reject such a feature, are the ones, who bash the next newbe, who asks a question, which could have been avoided by said feature.

@Guest above:
You are quite misleading. I never said/thought about wanting any advantage over newbies or bashed newbies. I think that this forum enables to find posts of one user, so you can check mine and then talk ...

What I meant was this: I do not think this important. I just do not like some tendency in current programs to try to be too user friendly that it just complicates things (because this attitude results in problem if somebody wants something a bit different than what authors expected).
Anyway, I am not one to decide here. As long as I am not forced go that way (as it is sometimes with commerciall products), I do not care.

Mirek