The first one has some DOS issues. STARFIG.BAT uses wildcard renaming, which DOSBox doesn't support. Also, the game redirects the output of MEM.EXE into a file and parses it, and hangs if the output doesn't match a specific format. MEM.EXE from MSDOS 6.22 works, but the ones from MSDOS 5.0 and DOSBox do not.

I was able to work around the issues by using the 4DOS command shell (supports wildcard renaming), and by putting MEM.EXE from MSDOS 6.22 into the game directory and using a "VER SET 6 22" command so MEM.EXE wouldn't complain about the version of DOS. For a temperamental game like this one, booting an HD image with MSDOS 6.22 might be less trouble.

The second game's setup program is crashing, but wouldn't be surprised if there are other issues beyond that. Maybe booting real DOS would help there, too.

Thanks for giving it a try. Is there a program i could use to use real DOS to try to run these games?

On my website when we do get the author to release the game to us I do my best to try to get the game into a working state and upload the game and instructions so people can enjoy the classics.

I will look around for some programs that I could use on Windows 7 Pro to emulate real dos from ages ago.

solnicaris wrote:

Is there a program i could use to use real DOS to try to run these games?

Yes, DOSBox. Would need to boot a disk image to install real DOS first.

Sample usage of a harddisc image in DOSBOX