VOGONS


First post, by catfishIT

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Intel chipset based Dell system, P4 2.8, 1gig ram, nvidia quadro pci-e 64meg, onboard soundmax audio running XP Pro SP2.

I'm attempting to run an application called "BRADA" which stands for "Boston Redevelopment Authority Daylight Analysis", an old dos application. It only uses disk, keyboard and simple b/w graphics. No mouse, sound...etc. The application actually works in plain XP correctly but only full screen. I need to be able to take a screen shot of this application so I need to run it in a window. Under NT this works but XP only runs it in full screen.

I'm attempting to get dosbox to run this application. It loads the application, graphics work in the window everything looks good... until I attempts to load/create project data files. Either reading or writing would cause the program to stop, pressing enter many times when this happens, for example, would cause the program and it's graphics to scroll (so it's not completely frozen). The program and it's data files are stored in c:\brada\brada\ in XP which I then MOUNT C: C:\brada\, letting me keep the original working structure.

This problem happens every time and I've tried using several versions of Dosbox including latest 0.72. Since this application can read/write data in native XP without problems is there any special options that would allow me to not do any kind of emulation on disk access? Or does anyone have other suggestions?
Thank you.

Reply 1 of 12, by wd

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Install it within dosbox, so the paths are consistent.

Reply 2 of 12, by catfishIT

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Unfortunately I don't have the installer just a copy from and old computer. I would like to know more about the consistent path issue though. Does something get changed around in dosbox? I replicated the same path as the old computer c:\brada\ in dosbox.
Thanks.

Reply 3 of 12, by wd

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If you normally (XP/whatever) have the program in c:\brada, then putting
it (the program) into c:\test\brada would lead to mounting c:\test as your
c drive in dosbox. It looks like you did that correctly, but maybe make sure.

Try disabling ems/xms, and type loadfix before starting the program, as well
as combinations of that.

Reply 4 of 12, by DosFreak

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So in XP when you have it working it's in "C:\brada\brada"?

and when you mount it in DosBox you do a "mount c c:\brada"?

Does the programs expect to be in \brada or \brada\brada (because when you do a "mount c c:\brada", then the program only sees "C:\brada")

Damn you WD! Too fast! 😀

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Reply 5 of 12, by catfishIT

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Thanks for the quick replies.

The application doesn't seem to care where it's being run. Tried from c:\brada\ and c:\brada\brada\. It runs fine even from a folder on my desktop in XP. It doesn't use any subfolders, it's likely a very simple application.

I've tried several different combinations with playing with xms, ems and umb including completely off without change.

Reply 6 of 12, by wd

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Is that program freeware or is some shareware/demo of it available that
exhibits the same problem?

Damn you WD! Too fast!

+1 boredom points for me i'd say 😉

Reply 7 of 12, by catfishIT

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Actually it looks like I might be wrong about the disk read/write. I setup Process Monitor from sysinternals and watch the application in xp and in dosbox. It's actually is reading program data files fine. When I enter in the project name (where it stops in dosbox) even in pure xp it doesn't create any files as I first though (likely does once I enter in more information).

I'm going to fiddle with more conf options. If anyone has further thoughts...
thanks.

Reply 8 of 12, by wd

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Maybe run it in the debugger-enabled dosbox build (see the development forum)
and watch the debugger window.

Reply 9 of 12, by catfishIT

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[quote="wd"]Is that program freeware or is some shareware/demo of it available that exhibits the same problem?
[quote]

There doesn't seem to be any links to this application on Boston Redevelopment Authority website or google. I'm unsure of it's licensing. I'll see if I can contact someone at BRA about that.

Reply 10 of 12, by catfishIT

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WOW.

I was able to take a screen shot of the splash screen that comes up very quickly. It was written on Sept 1985! Wiki says it would have been dos 2.11!

Reply 11 of 12, by wd

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Type something like "cycles 200" to maybe watch the splash screen longer.
If you suspect the reported dos version to be relevant, try "ver set 3.0" and similar.

Reply 12 of 12, by DosFreak

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You can also trying creating an hard drive image with bximage (included with Bochs).
Install MS-DOS on the HD image using DosBox and a mounted floppy image.
Then open up the hard drive image with Winimage and copy your program over to that.

There's instructions around here somewhere I'll see if I can dig them up. The process should be a little easier now that the autodetect feature for HD images was introduced.

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