6 ms·

Wonder if this will replace DOSBox which is derelict.

by smegel 10y ago

voltagex_ 10y ago
I don't think DOSBox is "derelict". http://source.dosbox.com/dosboxsvn.txt http://source.dosbox.com/dosboxsvn.txt
- richard_todd 10y ago
  It might not be, but it's easy to understand why a casual observer would think so. The latest news on the dosbox website is from 2013, and the latest version (0.74) was released in 2010 according to the date on the sourceforge download page. I wonder why they have not made another official release?
  - werdna123 10y ago
    Idk, probably because it works great
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    Interestingly, GOG (Good Old Games) are quite happy to ship 0.74 (including wasting 1.5 megabytes of space in most games by shipping the source) with their commercial games - even the latest one 11 days ago (yes, I bought it just to check!) https://www.gog.com/forum/general/whats_the_latest_dosbox_based_game_released_on_gog https://www.gog.com/forum/general/whats_the_latest_dosbox_ba...
    - detaro 10y ago
      the "wasted" 1.5 MB probably are the simplest way for them to be sure to be GPL compliant.
      - voltagex_ 10y ago
        True, but wouldn't they be compliant pointing to http://gog.com/dosbox http://gog.com/dosbox as well?
        detaro 10y ago
        I think that would work just as well and would have been my first idea too, but IMHO it's kind of an elegant solution to do it this way. The recipient can very easily find the exact version used and they don't have to maintain that information somewhere else. Especially if they add specific patches -> I know that they often modify the game binaries, but maybe they have custom DOSbox changes as well.
        lmm 10y ago
        They would have to send a written offer valid for any third party and for IIRC 3 years, so they'd have to commit to their hosting being available and so on. Probably cheaper to just send the 1.5MB.
- smegel 10y ago
  Interesting, I had heard about a "Daum Branch" but I didn't know the main trunk was that active. As a completely irrelevant trivia, if you play games on DosBOX, try and use them with Munt (Roland MT32 emulator) if they support Roland MIDI. I am currently playing Police Quest 1 (VGA) and it sounds amazing.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    >Daum branch Last updated in 2015 - http://ykhwong.x-y.net/ http://ykhwong.x-y.net/ Reminds me of the Gameboy Advance emulation scene and the mess that was VBA - eventually mainline was abandoned, VBA-m seems to be the maintained fork, but there's also VBA-rr.
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      Thankfully, us linux users have a good gba emulator now. Windows already had the legendary no$gba. And what about the PS emu scene? PCSX is dead, so your choice is between PCSXr, and ePSXe. There are meaningful differences between the two, but it's pretty hard to know that up front. The DC emu scene is almost nonexistant, all the emulators have been abandoned, none of them work on Linux (Reicast claims to, but it doesn't: I've tried), and even on windows, most games barely run, if at all. And then there's the NES emulation scene on GBA: pocketnes is the best emulator by far (it's amazing), and you can find copies floating around, but you need a pocketnes rom maker to build the roms, and that's hard to find, especially on unix. The only one I've found for unix is mkrom, and good luck getting your hands on it: I had to trawl archive.org for hours to find a copy.
      - Narishma 10y ago
        The best (most accurate) PS1 emulator is mednafen I believe.
        qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        I haven't used it, but I don't trust multi-system emulators as a rule. Especially after my many bad experiences with RetroArch.
vog 10y ago
DOSBox seems to have a second life through its JavaScript port EM-DOSBox, which appears to be quite active: https://github.com/dreamlayers/em-dosbox/commits/em-dosbox-svn-sdl2 https://github.com/dreamlayers/em-dosbox/commits/em-dosbox-s... That one became very popular through the use at the "MS-DOS Games" section of archive.org: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games
amyjess 10y ago
Spend some time playing around with PCem, and you'll find that the emulated machine runs at the same speed as the original hardware. In fact, PCem emulates every facet of the hardware: you're not just running a DOS environment, you're emulating an entire computer from end to end. You may not want to sit through an XT boot sequence every time you want to fire up an old game. Accurate emulators like PCem serve an important niche which is very different than quick-and-dirty environments like DOSBox. PCem and similar emulators aim to preserve thorough documentation of the hardware ("hardware preservation project" is probably a better term than "emulator" here), and they're also useful for running specialized software that doesn't work unless the emulation is 100% accurate. But if you just want to play a random old game, and it doesn't take advantage of specific hardware quirks, you'd be better off with DOSBox. Edit: Also, PCem needs BIOS ROMs to work, while DOSBox doesn't. This makes it easier for companies like GOG to ship DOSBox; if they shipped PCem instead, they'd have to either illegally include the ROMs (which will bring down the wrath of IBM's lawyers) or leave ROM acquisition as an exercise to the user, who won't be pleased at having to hunt down ROMs to play a game they bought on GOG.
- gattilorenz 10y ago
  This. PCem can run stuff (most) other emulators have trouble with. One example being Xenix 8086 which, to my knowledge, works only on MESS and PCem. And, comparing the usability of both, MESS doesn't seem an unappropriate name.
  - anthk 10y ago
    It should work under Bochs.

Wonder if this will replace DOSBox which is derelict.

by smegel 10y ago

Wonder if this will replace DOSBox which is derelict.

voltagex_ 10y ago

I don't think DOSBox is "derelict". http://source.dosbox.com/dosboxsvn.txt http://source.dosbox.com/dosboxsvn.txt

richard_todd 10y ago
It might not be, but it's easy to understand why a casual observer would think so. The latest news on the dosbox website is from 2013, and the latest version (0.74) was released in 2010 according to the date on the sourceforge download page. I wonder why they have not made another official release?
- werdna123 10y ago
  Idk, probably because it works great
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  Interestingly, GOG (Good Old Games) are quite happy to ship 0.74 (including wasting 1.5 megabytes of space in most games by shipping the source) with their commercial games - even the latest one 11 days ago (yes, I bought it just to check!) https://www.gog.com/forum/general/whats_the_latest_dosbox_based_game_released_on_gog https://www.gog.com/forum/general/whats_the_latest_dosbox_ba...
  - detaro 10y ago
    the "wasted" 1.5 MB probably are the simplest way for them to be sure to be GPL compliant.
    - voltagex_ 10y ago
      True, but wouldn't they be compliant pointing to http://gog.com/dosbox http://gog.com/dosbox as well?
      - detaro 10y ago
        I think that would work just as well and would have been my first idea too, but IMHO it's kind of an elegant solution to do it this way. The recipient can very easily find the exact version used and they don't have to maintain that information somewhere else. Especially if they add specific patches -> I know that they often modify the game binaries, but maybe they have custom DOSbox changes as well.
      - lmm 10y ago
        They would have to send a written offer valid for any third party and for IIRC 3 years, so they'd have to commit to their hosting being available and so on. Probably cheaper to just send the 1.5MB.
smegel 10y ago
Interesting, I had heard about a "Daum Branch" but I didn't know the main trunk was that active. As a completely irrelevant trivia, if you play games on DosBOX, try and use them with Munt (Roland MT32 emulator) if they support Roland MIDI. I am currently playing Police Quest 1 (VGA) and it sounds amazing.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  >Daum branch Last updated in 2015 - http://ykhwong.x-y.net/ http://ykhwong.x-y.net/ Reminds me of the Gameboy Advance emulation scene and the mess that was VBA - eventually mainline was abandoned, VBA-m seems to be the maintained fork, but there's also VBA-rr.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    Thankfully, us linux users have a good gba emulator now. Windows already had the legendary no$gba. And what about the PS emu scene? PCSX is dead, so your choice is between PCSXr, and ePSXe. There are meaningful differences between the two, but it's pretty hard to know that up front. The DC emu scene is almost nonexistant, all the emulators have been abandoned, none of them work on Linux (Reicast claims to, but it doesn't: I've tried), and even on windows, most games barely run, if at all. And then there's the NES emulation scene on GBA: pocketnes is the best emulator by far (it's amazing), and you can find copies floating around, but you need a pocketnes rom maker to build the roms, and that's hard to find, especially on unix. The only one I've found for unix is mkrom, and good luck getting your hands on it: I had to trawl archive.org for hours to find a copy.
    - Narishma 10y ago
      The best (most accurate) PS1 emulator is mednafen I believe.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        I haven't used it, but I don't trust multi-system emulators as a rule. Especially after my many bad experiences with RetroArch.

vog 10y ago

DOSBox seems to have a second life through its JavaScript port EM-DOSBox, which appears to be quite active: https://github.com/dreamlayers/em-dosbox/commits/em-dosbox-svn-sdl2 https://github.com/dreamlayers/em-dosbox/commits/em-dosbox-s... That one became very popular through the use at the "MS-DOS Games" section of archive.org: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

amyjess 10y ago

Spend some time playing around with PCem, and you'll find that the emulated machine runs at the same speed as the original hardware. In fact, PCem emulates every facet of the hardware: you're not just running a DOS environment, you're emulating an entire computer from end to end. You may not want to sit through an XT boot sequence every time you want to fire up an old game. Accurate emulators like PCem serve an important niche which is very different than quick-and-dirty environments like DOSBox. PCem and similar emulators aim to preserve thorough documentation of the hardware ("hardware preservation project" is probably a better term than "emulator" here), and they're also useful for running specialized software that doesn't work unless the emulation is 100% accurate. But if you just want to play a random old game, and it doesn't take advantage of specific hardware quirks, you'd be better off with DOSBox. Edit: Also, PCem needs BIOS ROMs to work, while DOSBox doesn't. This makes it easier for companies like GOG to ship DOSBox; if they shipped PCem instead, they'd have to either illegally include the ROMs (which will bring down the wrath of IBM's lawyers) or leave ROM acquisition as an exercise to the user, who won't be pleased at having to hunt down ROMs to play a game they bought on GOG.

gattilorenz 10y ago
This. PCem can run stuff (most) other emulators have trouble with. One example being Xenix 8086 which, to my knowledge, works only on MESS and PCem. And, comparing the usability of both, MESS doesn't seem an unappropriate name.
- anthk 10y ago
  It should work under Bochs.