Have you tried to congif -writeconfig <filename> yet?
Once you do that, you can edit how much RAM the virtual machine has, and whether certain things like EMS are used.
the two segments your'e most interested in are:
[dosbox]
# General Dosbox settings
language=
warnings=0
memsize=32
and
[dos]
# Setting a memory size to 0 will disable it.
xms=true
ems=true
dpmi=true (not sure if this one's in the non CVS build, if it's not there, don't worry)
After you've edited your config file, launch with: dosbox -conf <file name>
Similarly you can use config -writelang <filename> and then put that in the config file or use the -lang <filename> command line option. This lets you change the output messages to whatever you want. Presumably another language, but you can make the command prompt mock the user whenever they ask for help about stuff too, if you want.