Starflight encoded your game into the .com executable files themselves. Later Starflight installs set up a backup/restore batch file system that would copy the 2 executables to a backup directory, and then copy them back when you want to restore the game.

Basically, all it was were 3 batch files (to back up a game, restore a game, & start a new game.) All they did was take a name you gave (possible example "backup mygame01") and then copy the 2 com files (stara.com & starb.com iirc,) into a directory with that name. Then when you restored the game ("restore maygame01") it would copy them back to the play directory. My starflight disks have a batch file (install.bat) on them that sets this all up for me.

can you tell me how to do it now? I mean, I am really no good at that kind of stuff. I need directions that are written for dummies basically.

There's not much to it.
To backup your game. Copy all 3 *.com files (starflt.com, stara.com, & starb.com) somewhere else.
To restore your game. Copy all 3 *.com files from where you backed them up to, back into the play directory.

The absolutely easiest method is to use numbers (001 to 999) for your backups. Then:

BACKUP game (replace ### with the backup number:)
copy *.com *.###

RESTORE game (again replace ###:)
copy *.### *.com

I will try it but I have been unable to find a play directory. Wish me luck. Thank you for helping.

Ar33land wrote:

I have been unable to find a play directory.

What exactly are you doing when you start the game in DOSBox?

it is set up to just click on an icon on the desktop which goes directly into dosbox and automatically loads current game, you can not type into dosbox at all. The screen simply says press any key to continue. There are no directories to go to.
I did go to the search feature on the computer and found the files STARA.com, etc, but no where does it say play . If you click on any of the files it says this file can not run on your computer.

I messaged dosbox with the problem and they said it is unsolvable. The way the game was written I can't save my game. If I die I have to start over. This is a game well beyond it's time when it was made and there is too much game play to play it without saving so you can restore when you die. I played it on a Tandy 2000 EX when the game first came out and I loved the game. I still do. I don't mind the simple graphics because it has so much game play, whereas the games of today have a lot of graphics and videos, but hardly any game play.

You messaged who ? You didn't contact us.

backing up is simple, just copy the folder that contains the game.

https://www.gog.com/game/starflight_1_2

If the game crashes alot you'd probably be better off running the game in a copy of DOSBox with the saved states feature (not in official DOSBox) or Virtual PC/Vmware/Virtualbox with snapshots.

Ar33land wrote:

If you click on any of the files it says this file can not run on your computer.

Yes, that's why you have to start them using DOSBox.

The folder you found with the .com files is what FeedingDragon called the "play directory". Copy the .com files from that folder to a folder on your desktop to back up your game. Copy the files back to that folder to restore your game. No typing is required.

Ar33land wrote:

I have been playing Starflight which is streaming through dosbox but I can not find anyway to back up my games so if I die I do not have to start over. The original game you made copies of the disks and used your copies when you lost your battles. How can I backup my games with dosbox.?

Nope, you're doing it wrong.

Starflight 1 and 2 are self-modifying games. You have to save and backup those saves frequently because they're super-sensitive to changes in cpu speed. You can't "save state" it, because the game makes changes to the disk every time you enter or exit pretty much everything.

As for dosbox itself, once you find a speed that works for you, depending on your tolerance for the pc-speaker, you may need to adjust the timing, but once you find one that works, don't adjust it because the games are timed and the game clock will move too fast making it unwinnable.

Edit dosboxSF1_single.conf
change:

1
2[cpu]
3cycles=fixed 1028
4
5and
6[autoexec]
7@ECHO OFF
8mount C ".."
9@echo off
10c:
11cd STARFLT
12cd PLAY
13cls
14STARFLT.COM
15@ECHO Type REMEMBER XYZ to save a backup of this game
16@ECHO Type GOBACK XYZ to overwrite your current game with the backup

Where XYZ can be the name of what you want to save the backup as.

This only works if the game is mounted as "c:\starflt\" , if you change it, then the batch files don't work.

You also may use GameWizard32 who let you save the state of your computer, then restore it when you need.