DOSBOX Help

[dgdgagdae]

Does anyone here have any experience with DOSBOX? I'm trying to use it to get an old game running - Wing Commander, actually. My problem is with the keyboard. Several keys do nothing - "=", "[", "single quote". And the backslash key makes a "]".

I've tried searching the forums on the dosbox site, and I've waded through quite a few posts. I've also tried google, but no luck. I've installed D.O.G., but that didn't help.

I've tried different keyboard mappings, but I'm just getting nowhere. Hopefully someone here has had some similar issues and can point me in the right direction. If the key won't work, I can't play this game. I can't even type the install directory without the backslash.

[shoes23]

You don't need to type anything into the dos prompt to get .exe/.bat files to run, simply just drag the .exe/.bat file into the dosbox.exe file. Although I don't recall ever having a problem navigating the dos prompt in dosbox. If you can get the files to run and install, then just remap the buttons in the in-game config. Sorry, I know that it isn't an exact answer to your problem, hopefully someone can come alone and elaborate or give a better solution.

[Trebuken]

Can't you use one of the frontends and avoid the DOS prompt altogether?

[Jorpho]

Can't you use one of the frontends and avoid the DOS prompt altogether?

That's exactly what D.O.G. is, in theory.

Are you using a standard US keyboard, Mr. Dgdgagdae ? What's the Input Locale in your Windows Keyboard control panel set to?

[dgdgagdae]

That's exactly what D.O.G. is, in theory.

Are you using a standard US keyboard, Mr. Dgdgagdae ? What's the Input Locale in your Windows Keyboard control panel set to?

Right, and I've tried D.O.G. The problem isn't just at the command line. It's also inside programs that those keys aren't recognized.

In XP, my keyboard is set to "English (United States) - US". I've tried "keyboardlayout=none", "keyboardlayout=us", and "keyboardlayout=ux" in dosbox.conf, all with the same results.

[Jorpho]

I don't suppose you have something else wacky running in the background that might be monitoring those keys for some reason? Perhaps you can try running XP in safe mode? (I'm not sure DOSBox will run at all under such conditions, but it's worth a try.)

As a last resort there's probably a Live Linux CD that includes DOSBox. Maybe that's worth a try anyway, to see if DOSBox at least works properly under those clean conditions.

[-hellvin-]

Can't you use one of the frontends and avoid the DOS prompt altogether?

awww...but that totally kills the nostalgia of DOS altogether =*(. Isn't there a setup.exe, or install.exe in the wing commander folder?? Once you're in the directory of wing commander in dosbox, type in dir /w and see. Once you run the .exe that should tell have config for the button keys.

[Jorpho]

I think when he says "can't even type the install directory without the backslash" means that the keyboard isn't even working correctly on the command line, not just in Wing Commander. (?)

[-hellvin-]

I think when he says "can't even type the install directory without the backslash" means that the keyboard isn't even working correctly on the command line, not just in Wing Commander. (?)

Pardon me, I read the post incorrectly.

Here, I downloaded dosbox just now again and read the couple of Q/As at the beginning and here's the scoop....I don't know if you've read and already tried all this stuff, but just bringing it to your attention if you have not:

Q: I can't type \ or : in DOSBox.
A: This is a known problem. It only occurs if your keyboard layout isn't US.
Some possible fixes:
1. Switch the keyboard layout of your operating system.
2. Use / instead.
3. Open dosbox.conf and change usescancodes=false to usescancodes=true.
4. Add the commands you want to execute to the "configfile".
5. Change the dos keyboard layout (see Section 7 Keyboard Layout).
6. Use ALT-58 for : and ALT-92 for \.
7. for \ try the keys around "enter". For ":" try shift and the keys
between "enter" and "l" (US keyboard layout).
8. Try keyb.com from FreeDOS (http://projects.freedos.net/keyb/).
Look for keyb2.0 pre4 as older and newer versions are known to
have a bug in the loader routines.

[dgdgagdae]

I'm not sure, can I? The instructions at http://www.wcnews.com/techsupport.shtml say to use DOSBox. The only issue is, I'm having the keyboard problem I described above.

If someone has another suggestion for running this old game, I'm all ears.

[rxd]

He's talking about one of the DOSBox frontends. I use one (forgot which one and I'm not at my game system) and I never have to actually use the DOS prompt of DOSBox. You set up and config the DOS program in the frontends gui and it calls DOSBox and your game.

Just did a Google search on DOSBox Frontend and it came right up. I use D-Fend.

[Borman]

Download dfend, itsa gui for DOSbox. Works perfectly