As far as i know you can download several frontends for DOSBox from their homepage that would serve your purpose.
Not very nice but functional 😉
Under DOS, programs like "qmenu" or "quickmenu" would be a good choice.

Hi red_avatar,

I totally agree that front-ends like D-Fend might be what you need, so you can customize and tweak Dosbox' settings. However, if you want a true dos menu program, might I suggest my own 'Access' (http://home.quicknet.nl/qn/prive/blankendaalr/ or http://surf.to/AccessDosMenu)?! There is a speedy text-mode version, and Access comes in multiple graphical versions as well if you'd want that. Both English and Dutch releases are available.

Also, Gaze or Glance might be interesting dos menu programs (http://www.filelibrary.com/Contents/DOS/52/3.html).

Regards,
Ronald

BE A MAN AND WRITE IT YOURSELF!!!!!!!!11!! 😀

Allow me to whip up a nice template.

config.sys

1[menu]
2menuitem=WIN, Windows98
3menuitem=XMS, DOS XMS
4menuitem=EMS, DOS EMS
5menuitem=4GW, Protected Mode games
6
7[common]
8
9[WIN]
10
11[XMS]
12DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
13DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS I=B000-B7FF
14DOS=HIGH,UMB
15FILES=30
16BUFFERS=10
17
18[EMS]
19DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
20DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000-B7FF
21DOS=HIGH,UMB
22FILES=30
23BUFFERS=10
24
25[4GW]
26DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
27FILES=30
28BUFFERS=10

autoexec.bat

1@ECHO OFF
2PATH=C:\;C:\WINDOWS;
3GOTO %CONFIG%
4
5:WIN
6WIN
7GOTO END
8
9:XMS
10SMARTDRV
11LH DOSKEY
12GOTO END
13
14:EMS
15SMARTDRV
16LH DOSKEY
17GOTO END
18
19:4GW
20SMARTDRV
21LH DOSKEY
22GOTO END
23
24:END

Don't forget to edit your msdos.sys file and change the gui=1 to 0 so it doesn't start Windows automatically. And, of course, you need your sound card, mouse, and cdrom stuff!! This is also assuming you're running Windows 9x. If you're using DOS 6 you need to change the /WINDOWS/ to /DOS/

Frontends are for Windows babies 😜 I just wanted an authentic DOS menu, and I found it with 3DMenu which does everything I wanted. It's far quicker than D-Fend too. It also looks quite a bit like that IBM menu, which is what I specifically wanted. Thanks anyway though.

I tested some dos menu's years ago for use with MAME. This was my personel preference;

ftp://ftp.eunet.bg/pub/simtelnet/msdos/menu/pcms130.zip

Otherwise just search on Simtel

red_avatar wrote:

Frontends are for Windows babies 😜 I just wanted an authentic DOS menu, and I found it with 3DMenu which does everything I wanted. It's far quicker than D-Fend too. It also looks quite a bit like that IBM menu, which is what I specifically wanted. Thanks anyway though.

Hey...I don't have to worry about configuration once I backup my games with defend...so there. 🤣 I prefer to actually have all my games in a list with their own configs all ready to go.

Probably the best benefit to an internal DosBox frontend is that it works across all OS's so if you use Linux/Windows/OSX alot you don't have to bother with host frontends and you don't have to worry about your frontend never working because if it works in DosBox it will probably continue to do so (at least more so than Windows where if you move your mouse you'll have to reboot). 😉

Its still hard to set certain options from within dosbox (scalers etc). If the time comes where d-fend no longer works for me then I would rather do with no menu at all.

Of course, since d-fend creates conf files I could just stick them into the directories and a copy of dosbox. 😎 So thats my backup plan.