In DOSBox, maybe try LOADFIX?

In XP (without DOSBox), you can try EMS Magic.
http://www.emsmagic.com/

Thanks Jorpho, I already tried LOADFIX in DOSBOX but that seems to make no difference.
Not sure about EMS Magic, looks like you have to pay for that and I am really mean
😉

have already tried messing about with the properties on the PT.EXE in XP, interestingly, although I have set Expanded memory, the program does not spot this when it starts (it gives a small diagnostic). However, in DOSBOX, it does report LIMS EXPANDED memory (and it wants this), but it still does not work.

If you are really keen, I could send you a ZIP of the program and you can have a go at it if you feel up to it as it is driving me crazy.....

Oops apologies, just spotted that EMS magix is free for personal so trying that now....

As per the EMS Magic page, XP had some problems with EMS after a particular hotfix was released. (I'm not sure if that was ever fixed.)

Not sure why DOSBox would be having problems, unless it requires a lot more expanded memory, in which case you should edit DOSBox.conf accordingly. You can also try a debug-enabled build of DOSBox to see if any useful diagnostic messages appear.

I have REMOVED the app as I am thoroughly sick of this having spent all afternoon on it....

OH DARN AND DRAT!
I have just got out an old DOS laptop and loaded this up. If you run it from the uncracked version it runs fine. You have to start from DAS.EXE and when you are in the pencil Test, F6 works as expected.
APOLOGIES EVERYONE but thanks JORPHO, I will remember EMS magic as it looks a usefull tool

I just installed this for someone who found this buried in the basement. It took some tweaking but did get it to run in DOSBOX. I played with it briefly and found it to be the most non-intuitive animation program I've ever used, even having the included thick manual. I'm not certain who the target user is but definitely not for noobs!

Topic...raise from your grave!

Anyone having weird behaviors when installing floppies by included install.exe? I cannot test on a real machine right now but during copy a red popup message says it cannot open file and dosbox crashes. Weird thing is that it doesn't ask for floppy change, it cannot access the file because it's on another disc! I wonder if it's a garbled installer or what else...

You did try some SVN right? if not do it ;·)

lightmaster wrote:

You did try some SVN right? if not do it ;·)

Thanks for the tip, I used Dosbox-X before, now I tried latest svn, same as before but now dosbox doesn't crash, instead another message appears: Divide error Null pointer assignmentg copied from the floppy disc to the hard drive 🤣

Guess I'll try with real machine

Try a plain vanilla SVN built not something like dosbox-x that could be broken in other places

Dominus wrote:

Try a plain vanilla SVN built not something like dosbox-x that could be broken in other places

Yep, first I tried dosbox-x. Then I tried vanilla svn.

sorry, I misread that.

Most game installers search for the volume label without specifying the exact name (i.e. *.*) and rely on the label attribute to find the label, but this app's installer specifies the exact label name it's looking for, which DOSBox doesn't support unless you boot real DOS.

You can work around the issue by copying all of the floppy disks (preserving their directory structure) into a local folder and mounting it in DOSBox like this: mount a c:\floppy -t floppy -label LABEL

The label name you choose for the mount command doesn't really matter, but you need to set one. With this method the installer should go through the installation without prompting for the next disk, only pausing to ask which parts of the app you want to install.

Yep, your explication makes sense: installer doesn't even ask for floppy change when it cannot find a file, it just throws an error and goes nuts.