Hnn... AFAIK DOSBox will only accept ISO-8859-1 (US-ASCII) input so if it looks like a colon, it's probably a colon. FWIW, the colon you typed in your post is a colon. 😀 The only thing I can think of at the moment is try using a backslash "\" instead of a forwardslash. If you are on a Japanese keyboard I believe (based on my usage of JWindows with a US keyboard) it will be the "¥" key.

Wow, thanks for the quick reply Snover. I tried both forward and backslash but no cigar. I am sure that the keyboard is not the problem. After I type in "mount c c:/oldgames (I can type backslash in Dosbox but not here for some reason) I get told that "Directory c doesn't exist."

That, is where the problem lies. Do you have any idea what I am doing wrong? I have been thinking about this for so long that the word 'directory' doesn't make sense to me anymore.

Thanks.

Does mount c c:\ OR mount c c:/ work? Does the folder Oldgames exist?

Yes the folder 'oldgames' does exist on the C drive with the the Drivers, Internet, WINDOWS, etc folders. I tried every different combination of "mount c c:/FILENAME" I could think of but I always get the same response; Directory c doesn't exist.

Neither does directory A,D or E when I tried that. I still get the same response even if I only put in "mount c c" I just don't get it. Of course the C directory is there or the computer wouldn't work.

Thanks for your help so far guys. Anybody got any other suggestions?

mount c c:\
or
mount c c:/

I tried both and got the same ole reply back. It is refusing to acknowledge the existence of the C directory. Thanks anyway Qbix. Any more ideas? Please, pretty please.

well it's weird.

It seems that mount doesn't understand that c is the drive you want and not the to mount directory.

try this
put the mount command
mount c c:\

in the [autoexec]
of dosbox.conf (the other link in the start menu)

[autoexec]
mount c c:\

Maybe this will work.
Else It's very special case and we it's needs to debugged. Never had any complaints from a japenese user before.

Um, sorry if I am being thick but I am not sure what you mean by AUTOEXEC. Is that the black screen where you type stuff in? Also, I don't know which start menu you mean to get to the Dosbox configuration (link). Do you mean the Windows XP start menu?

Sorry to keep on about this. I just can't see a reason why it won't mount.

no if you installed dosbox
there are 4 items in the startmenu of winXP
one of them is called dosbox.conf and has the notepad item for it.

if you click on that and look at the bottom of the newly opened file there is your [autoexec]

Please keep on posting as It's a strange problem which should be solved.

Yatta!

Okay, I will try and remember all the things I just did to make it work. It has been a sharp learning curve.

First of all, like you (Qbix) said to, I did mount c c:/oldgames in the AUTOEXEC, closed it, saving the changes and opened Dosbox again. It had worked but When I tried to change it to C: it refused. Ah-HA! I thought and typed in mount d d:/ to see what would happen and it gave me the same old bollocks about the D directory not existing. So to conclude I am pretty sure that the keyboard is to blame. There is simply no way on Gods green earth that I can get this keyboard to type a colon on Dosbox. If I want to type a colon I HAVE to do it in the AUTOEXEC.

There you are. Problem solved. It is a bit of a pain in the A but here is the little adventure I had trying to get an actual game to run:

First I put mount c c:/oldgames then below it typed c: which is all the colon antics needed to run a program. Then I opened Dosbox and chose a program. The first one I chose was Geisha because I know the game works from running it in normal DOS but it always ran to fast and I had the same colon crisis with MOSLO. It ran on the second attempt at the proper speed. Good. So then I went for the big money. The whole reason I have spent the last two days trying to get Dosbox to work is because I want to get my copy of Monkey Island running with sound. So I did the same again. I opened up Dosbox with the two autoexecutables I had already prepared (made shortcuts for both the AUTOEXEC and Dosbox on the desktop) and typed in cd monkeyisland hit return and it didn't work. So I took the .exe file out of the folder and put it in the oldgames file. Raw. Then I just typed monkey (the name of the file) and hit return. It said 'Insert disk 1'

Not to be disuaded, I went back to the AUTOEXEC and retyped mount a c:/ (because I was under the impression that I could trick the computer into thinking that it was coming from a disk (see Dosbox readme)) but it still asked for the disk. 'Tits' I thought but I was well prepared and already had a copy of Monkey Island 2 (which wouldn't run in normal DOS because it said the soundcard didn't work). So I went back to the original mount settings in the AUTOEXEC and then in Dosbox: cd monkey island 2 thenmonkey2 and it worked! Well, sort of. It has copy protection so I need to print a code wheel before I can run it. Anyway, it had sound and stuff so I was almost there.

Finally I tried Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis. This worked perfectly. Mind you it worked on normal DOS as well but without the sound. This time it had music and I have yet to see if I can get SFX on it as well but it was near as damnit.

To conclude again. If you are using a Japanese keyboard (I am using a Sony Vaio laptop) and you can't type properly on the Dosbox screen then you have to mount the directory and change the drive in the AUTOEXEC. That way you have more control over the keyboard commands. Either that or I am just a complete spastic and was doing something obviously wrong all the time. Bear in mind that I am using a Japanese OS and I am not Japanese. And I am typing with a stick with a rubber bung on the end which is strapped to my head.

That was a joke.

Thanks to all the people who put their suggestion forward today. It is pleasing to know that people go out of their way to help someone out who they don't even know. Especially Qbix who by the look of it troubleshoots for almost everyone on this forum. If you are ever in Tokyo, I owe you a sake.

Hi. Sorry to drag up an old thread. I'm just writing this to say that the above user isn't alone. There's something wrong with DOSbox and either Japanese keyboards or Japanese Windows. I just tried using DOSbox for the first time and I came across the same problem. I'm using the Japanese version of Win98 and a Japanese 106 keyboard and just like above, the colon and several other keys, including the backslash, just don't work. Most of them map to the "1" key instead. It makes navigating between drives almost impossible.

I've managed to configure autoexec like the above poster and it makes the program usable though. I've also found the trick where you can drag the .exe in explorer onto the top of the DOSbox.exe icon and it will run that program. But this is really a problem that needs to be looked at an corrected if possible.

BTW, the problem doesn't seem to be a simple case of the program expecting a different character map. I've run into those before, and in those cases you usually just have to figure out which key actually does what you want. In this case though, 90% of the keys map correctly to the japanese version (including ones that commonly get mis-mapped), but the last one or two keys on each row are just not being recognized correctly at all, as I mentioned above.

I sure hope someone gets around to fixing this soon. It's exciting to be able to run old dos games within windows.

PS: There's also another thread about the same problem here: link

hi there. i know this is a VARY old post. but im having the same problem. i did the autodec and my keyboard is completely fine. and after all this time it seems this bug hasn't been fixed. i was 1 years old when this post was created. like wholly crap. this post is 20 years old! anyways. it still doesn't work. having same issue and im using an english keyboard

and guess what. it seems 20 years later this isn't solved what the F&@k im using windows 10. 2024 and it's still a problem. and im using english windows 10 united states

Closed.
Open your own thread for your issue.
Make sure you enclose your path with quotes if using directory names with spaces in them.