VOGONS


First post, by gutch

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I work on life safety systems. Some of them have old programmers that require the use of dosbox. On our old Window 7 company issued laptops they used dosbox. I don't know how they did it, it just worked. Installed the programmers like normal and launch them as normal. However, no fancy short cuts that I can see. Just double click the exe file and it opened up dos box.

If I try to create a shortcut with dosbox, I kinda can get it to work. But the programmer requires a security dongle which I have. When dosbox opens an executes the the programmer, it says it can't detect the security key.

Reply 2 of 13, by _Rob

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Apart from the whole DOSBox does not support non-games issue...

By default DOSBox will not access physical ports on the host, unless there is a config file that defines access. Those Windows 7 machines must have a dosbox config file with the right settings in them. If you right click on the shortcut and view the settings, you may find that it points to a config file.

Reply 3 of 13, by gutch

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Akuma wrote on 2020-08-29, 13:50:

Dosbox does not support apps, its for games only.

Well this just isn't true. We've been using dosbox on company laptops for years on windows 7 to support these old programs. Moving on to Windows 10 has made it difficult though.

Reply 4 of 13, by krcroft

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Although some hospitals might be using DOSBox, typically its not advised for direct life-support equipment (ventilator control system, etc)

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It's also not advised to use DOSBox to operate air-traffic-control software or flight control systems (in the aircraft).

😉

Reply 5 of 13, by Dominus

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gutch wrote on 2020-08-29, 14:35:
Akuma wrote on 2020-08-29, 13:50:

Dosbox does not support apps, its for games only.

Well this just isn't true. We've been using dosbox on company laptops for years on windows 7 to support these old programs. Moving on to Windows 10 has made it difficult though.

There is a difference between running non game progrms and supporting this

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 6 of 13, by Wengier

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gutch wrote on 2020-08-29, 14:35:
Akuma wrote on 2020-08-29, 13:50:

Dosbox does not support apps, its for games only.

Well this just isn't true. We've been using dosbox on company laptops for years on windows 7 to support these old programs. Moving on to Windows 10 has made it difficult though.

DOSBox is officially for games only. It may or may not work for other programs, but this is simply unsupported and unrecommended, and you run them fully at your own risk.

Reply 7 of 13, by gutch

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krcroft wrote on 2020-08-29, 14:42:
Although some hospitals might be using DOSBox, typically its not advised for direct life-support equipment (ventilator control s […]
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Although some hospitals might be using DOSBox, typically its not advised for direct life-support equipment (ventilator control system, etc)

2020-08-29_07-36.png

It's also not advised to use DOSBox to operate air-traffic-control software or flight control systems (in the aircraft).

😉

Yea I get it. This isn't running a system. They are just programmers to make changes to systems. I just don't understand how our IT did it because it works extremely well on Windows 7 on the company provided image. Trying it at home with my own install of windows 7, can't figure it out.

Thanks anyways all.

Reply 9 of 13, by Wengier

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From the DOSBox developers:

DOSBox IS NOT SUITED TO RUN YOUR NON-GAMING DOS APPLICATION

For running non-gaming DOS applications, it is recommended to use something that officially support them, such as DOSBox-X and vDos/vDosPlus. However, for things that are directly related to life-support equipment it is generally not recommended to use an emulator to run them anyway.

Reply 10 of 13, by Jorpho

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gutch wrote on 2020-08-29, 21:23:

I just don't understand how our IT did it because it works extremely well on Windows 7 on the company provided image.

As noted above, you can easily examine the "company provided image" and determine what changes were made to DOSBox.

A very long time ago someone posted a custom version of DOSBox that emulated a specific parallel-port security dongle, but I doubt that is what is being used here.

Reply 11 of 13, by Akuma

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Wengier wrote on 2020-08-30, 18:20:

I've seen multiple posts coming along in my time here, but shouldn't this be a sticky ?

Wengier wrote on 2020-08-30, 18:20:

For running non-gaming DOS applications, it is recommended to use something that officially support them, such as DOSBox-X and vDos/vDosPlus. However, for things that are directly related to life-support equipment it is generally not recommended to use an emulator to run them anyway.

That's the other guy's problem 😉

Reply 13 of 13, by Akuma

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Jorpho wrote on 2020-08-31, 00:25:
Akuma wrote on 2020-08-30, 20:08:

I've seen multiple posts coming along in my time here, but shouldn't this be a sticky ?

What makes you think it isn't a sticky?

Because it seems to be stuck to the underside of the refrigerator 🤣
imo it would be more useful under Games/Apps, but that's just me.

Why is it posted there ?