5 ms·

Boxer is a Slick App That Brings DOS Gaming to Your Mac

76 points by rjim86 15y ago

Zirro 15y ago
The headline says "Slick", but in my opinion this goes even further than that. Every part of it that I've seen so far is beautiful. That includes the homepage, too. This is the kind of really well-made apps that made me switch to OS X in the first place. Would love to see (much) more of this :)
peterjmag 15y ago
I love Boxer! It's beautifully designed, and it's handled everything I've thrown at it so far with aplomb. Some of my favorites to revisit: Monuments of Mars, Scorched Earth, Commander Keen, Dark Forces.
- zaph0d 15y ago
  No wonder, Boxer is built on top of DOSBox, the industry standard FOSS DOS emulator.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
lparry 15y ago
Boxer + GOG.com = retro heaven. It's just a shame you need a windows pc to get the GOG installer to extract the setup installers
- bitops 15y ago
  If you're willing to make the investment, VMWare Fusion is great for that. Though of course you still have to obtain a copy of Windows afterwards. I've addressed this by taking my ancient, ancient Windows laptop and running a program provided by VMWare that creates an image from your physical machine. (I've forgotten its name at present). To make the creation process go faster, I usually restore the machine to factory defaults. That way, the registry is smaller and everything is much smoother.
- lucian1900 15y ago
  I've used Wine.app for that and it worked great. VirtualBox is another free choice, but it requires a windows license.
rjim86 15y ago
did anyone tried Blood game ..
choocoolat 15y ago
http://boxerapp.com/ http://boxerapp.com/
dhbanes 15y ago
It's about time to revisit Day of the Tentacle :)
- _frog 15y ago
  For adventure games running on the SCUMM scripting engine I really suggest you check out ScummVM[1]. It's similar to DOSBox in some regards, but it's designed to run old adventure games, namely those from LucasFilm Games. It even runs games designed for Windows systems on OS X and Linux (The Curse of Monkey Island works great for example). [1]: http://www.scummvm.org/ http://www.scummvm.org/
  - dhbanes 15y ago
    Awesome, thanks for this.
embwbam 15y ago
XCOM UFO Defense. Greatest game ever. Just started a new game for kicks on superhuman. First UFO landing, every soldier died. Perfect!
- bitops 15y ago
  That game is a testament to the immortality of well-done software. I still play it today, and it's still scary doing those first night missions against the sectoids. On a related note...do any of us care what language or environment those games were implemented in? The software rocks. That's good enough. :)
- andycroll 15y ago
  My dream iPad game is a port of XCOM UFO Defense. There's three or four 'remakes'/ports floating round the net: http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/ http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/ http://openxcom.org/ http://openxcom.org/ http://xenowar.net/ http://xenowar.net/ Am a little bit surprised there's not a turn-by-turn iOS battle in the UFO mold (like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Squad_Nemesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Squad_Nemesis).
stevenp 15y ago
Great. Now, thanks to Space Quest III, I will not get any work done this month.
- abestor 15y ago
  Be sure to grab the MT-32 ROMs too, so you can enjoy Space Quest III as it was originally intended! INSERT BUCKAZOID and all. (They don't come with Boxer for legal reasons, but they're easy to find from a Google search.)
bitops 15y ago
One game that I've searched high and low for is Hyperspeed by Microprose. Few people seem to have played it but it was one of the best strategy games ever made.
kellishaver 15y ago
I downloaded this a while ago with the intention of installing a few games and then got sidetracked with work (or perhaps unsidetracked) and forgot all about it. Thanks for the reminder! It does indeed look nicely done. Rest well this night, for tomorrow you sail for the kingdom of Daggerfall.
slowpoke 15y ago
My first thought: There's already DOSBox (which I bet was already ported to Mac), what's the point? >It's powered by DOSBox. My second thought after reading that: DOSBox is GPL'd, where's the source of Boxers? >Clicking through a few links: https://github.com/alunbestor/Boxer https://github.com/alunbestor/Boxer Well, okay, I really don't get the point of this "App" but I guess as long as it's free software...
- FreeFull 15y ago
  It looks like the DOSBox equivalent of Winebottler to me
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    I really don't get the point of that either. As far as I can tell, it wraps... Wine. What's the purpose? I could just run Wine (or DOSBox) directly, same result.
    - _frog 15y ago
      Effectively Boxer provides an alternate UI to DOSBox, one that saves you from the hassle of manually setting up games and interacting with a DOS prompt. On top of that it adds some niceties like quick access to game manuals, a nice way of displaying your game library and so on.
    - abestor 15y ago
      (Disclosure: I'm the developer of Boxer.) Boxer does a whole lot more than wrap up games. If you have a Mac, just download Boxer and give it a spin: the difference between Boxer and DOSBox will be immediately apparent. If you don't have a Mac or don't feel like trying it out, then here's an exhaustive answer I gave to a similar question in a previous thread about Boxer (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2363917 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2363917): ------- Boxer uses DOSBox as its emulation core, but it has a completely redesigned UI and workflow for installing and playing games. Boxer bundles DOS games into gameboxes, a self-contained app-like package format that appears as a single file to OSX and can be launched by double-clicking. Each gamebox is a self-contained DOS ecosystem that contains the game and everything it needs to run: drive folders and images, configuration settings, documentation etc. They're path-independent, which means they can be stored wherever you like, moved around, backed up easily, and shared with friends: without needing to reconfigure anything inside the gamebox. You can create gameboxes by drag-and-dropping game CDs, floppies, disc images or folders onto Boxer's game import window. Boxer guides you through the game's installer if needed, then packages the game up into a gamebox (and rips its CD to an image, if appropriate). Boxer aims to make DOS games require zero configuration and zero knowledge of the emulator's esoteric inner workings. It automatically sets up drives appropriately; it also pre-configures hundreds of games that need custom emulation settings, with more automatic configurations added in each new version. If needed, you can tweak common emulation settings (like CPU speed, emulation optimizations and mouse behaviour) directly while you play, using Boxer's inspector window. The inspector also lets you add and eject DOS drives by drag-and-drop, at any time while you're playing a game: this lets you easily hot-swap CDs and floppies for multi-disc games. To this end, Boxer also auto-mounts any CDs or floppies you insert while playing, and removes them from DOS once they're ejected. You can resize and zoom Boxer's window while you play, and toggle between rendering styles (HQx etc.) on the fly. Boxer's renderer has much sharper graphics than DOSBox at large window sizes, and has dramatically better fullscreen support: you can access the menu, dock and inspector window in fullscreen by unlocking the mouse, and switch back and forth to other applications easily from fullscreen. This is handy for checking up a PDF game manual for instance: which Boxer scans gameboxes for, and displays automatically in the Help menu for easy access. While you’re at the DOS prompt, the window displays a slide-out program launcher tray so you can run the game program with a single click; while you’re running a game installer, the tray displays installation tips instead to help you through common installer questions. Boxer has plug-and-play joystick support, letting you add and remove joysticks at any time with zero configuration. Boxer automatically corrects axis and button layouts for a number of popular HID controllers that are otherwise broken to the point of unusability with regular DOSBox. It also integrates with Joypad (http://getjoypad.com http://getjoypad.com) so you can use your iPhone or iPod Touch as a controller if you so desire. Boxer reimplements DOSBox's standard 2-axis, 4-axis, Thrustmaster and Flightstick Pro joystick modes, and adds a racing wheel emulation mode with axis behaviour designed for driving games (this mode uses tilt control in Joypad incidentally, which is a surprisingly cool way to play). Boxer's Flightstick Pro throttle emulation also has assists for gamepad thumbsticks and displays an on-screen throttle indicator. You can switch joystick modes on the fly while you're playing. Boxer also has built-in Munt MT-32 emulation: you'll need to find the ROMs yourself, but adding them to Boxer is just drag-and-drop. Boxer automatically enables MT-32 emulation for over 400 games, so there's no need to manually switch between MIDI emulation modes. Boxer's MT-32 emulation even displays the MT-32's LCD messages in a spiffy bezel - something no other emulator does to my knowledge. Boxer can also detect if you have a real MT-32 plugged into your Mac, and if so will automatically pipe MT-32 music to it (though not General MIDI - it can tell the difference). Apart from that, Boxer has the usual trappings of a Cocoa app: proper menus, sane keyboard shortcuts, integrated Apple Help and automatic application updates. I think that about covers it.
makmanalp 15y ago
It would be a smart move for gog.com to buy these guys out and also port it to linux and windows, and use it as their main steam-like thing (without the lockin). Edit: Oops, looks like it's open source already. Great!
driverdan 15y ago
While Boxer is great it isn't new. I'm surprised it hasn't gotten coverage on HN before.

76 points by rjim86 15y ago

Zirro 15y ago

The headline says "Slick", but in my opinion this goes even further than that. Every part of it that I've seen so far is beautiful. That includes the homepage, too. This is the kind of really well-made apps that made me switch to OS X in the first place. Would love to see (much) more of this :)

peterjmag 15y ago

I love Boxer! It's beautifully designed, and it's handled everything I've thrown at it so far with aplomb. Some of my favorites to revisit: Monuments of Mars, Scorched Earth, Commander Keen, Dark Forces.

zaph0d 15y ago
No wonder, Boxer is built on top of DOSBox, the industry standard FOSS DOS emulator.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

lparry 15y ago

Boxer + GOG.com = retro heaven. It's just a shame you need a windows pc to get the GOG installer to extract the setup installers

bitops 15y ago
If you're willing to make the investment, VMWare Fusion is great for that. Though of course you still have to obtain a copy of Windows afterwards. I've addressed this by taking my ancient, ancient Windows laptop and running a program provided by VMWare that creates an image from your physical machine. (I've forgotten its name at present). To make the creation process go faster, I usually restore the machine to factory defaults. That way, the registry is smaller and everything is much smoother.
lucian1900 15y ago
I've used Wine.app for that and it worked great. VirtualBox is another free choice, but it requires a windows license.

rjim86 15y ago

did anyone tried Blood game ..

choocoolat 15y ago

http://boxerapp.com/ http://boxerapp.com/

dhbanes 15y ago

It's about time to revisit Day of the Tentacle :)

_frog 15y ago
For adventure games running on the SCUMM scripting engine I really suggest you check out ScummVM[1]. It's similar to DOSBox in some regards, but it's designed to run old adventure games, namely those from LucasFilm Games. It even runs games designed for Windows systems on OS X and Linux (The Curse of Monkey Island works great for example). [1]: http://www.scummvm.org/ http://www.scummvm.org/
- dhbanes 15y ago
  Awesome, thanks for this.

embwbam 15y ago

XCOM UFO Defense. Greatest game ever. Just started a new game for kicks on superhuman. First UFO landing, every soldier died. Perfect!

bitops 15y ago
That game is a testament to the immortality of well-done software. I still play it today, and it's still scary doing those first night missions against the sectoids. On a related note...do any of us care what language or environment those games were implemented in? The software rocks. That's good enough. :)
andycroll 15y ago
My dream iPad game is a port of XCOM UFO Defense. There's three or four 'remakes'/ports floating round the net: http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/ http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/ http://openxcom.org/ http://openxcom.org/ http://xenowar.net/ http://xenowar.net/ Am a little bit surprised there's not a turn-by-turn iOS battle in the UFO mold (like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Squad_Nemesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Squad_Nemesis).

stevenp 15y ago

Great. Now, thanks to Space Quest III, I will not get any work done this month.

abestor 15y ago
Be sure to grab the MT-32 ROMs too, so you can enjoy Space Quest III as it was originally intended! INSERT BUCKAZOID and all. (They don't come with Boxer for legal reasons, but they're easy to find from a Google search.)

bitops 15y ago

One game that I've searched high and low for is Hyperspeed by Microprose. Few people seem to have played it but it was one of the best strategy games ever made.

kellishaver 15y ago

I downloaded this a while ago with the intention of installing a few games and then got sidetracked with work (or perhaps unsidetracked) and forgot all about it. Thanks for the reminder! It does indeed look nicely done. Rest well this night, for tomorrow you sail for the kingdom of Daggerfall.

slowpoke 15y ago

My first thought: There's already DOSBox (which I bet was already ported to Mac), what's the point? >It's powered by DOSBox. My second thought after reading that: DOSBox is GPL'd, where's the source of Boxers? >Clicking through a few links: https://github.com/alunbestor/Boxer https://github.com/alunbestor/Boxer Well, okay, I really don't get the point of this "App" but I guess as long as it's free software...

FreeFull 15y ago
It looks like the DOSBox equivalent of Winebottler to me
- slowpoke 15y ago
  I really don't get the point of that either. As far as I can tell, it wraps... Wine. What's the purpose? I could just run Wine (or DOSBox) directly, same result.
  - _frog 15y ago
    Effectively Boxer provides an alternate UI to DOSBox, one that saves you from the hassle of manually setting up games and interacting with a DOS prompt. On top of that it adds some niceties like quick access to game manuals, a nice way of displaying your game library and so on.
  - abestor 15y ago
    (Disclosure: I'm the developer of Boxer.) Boxer does a whole lot more than wrap up games. If you have a Mac, just download Boxer and give it a spin: the difference between Boxer and DOSBox will be immediately apparent. If you don't have a Mac or don't feel like trying it out, then here's an exhaustive answer I gave to a similar question in a previous thread about Boxer (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2363917 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2363917): ------- Boxer uses DOSBox as its emulation core, but it has a completely redesigned UI and workflow for installing and playing games. Boxer bundles DOS games into gameboxes, a self-contained app-like package format that appears as a single file to OSX and can be launched by double-clicking. Each gamebox is a self-contained DOS ecosystem that contains the game and everything it needs to run: drive folders and images, configuration settings, documentation etc. They're path-independent, which means they can be stored wherever you like, moved around, backed up easily, and shared with friends: without needing to reconfigure anything inside the gamebox. You can create gameboxes by drag-and-dropping game CDs, floppies, disc images or folders onto Boxer's game import window. Boxer guides you through the game's installer if needed, then packages the game up into a gamebox (and rips its CD to an image, if appropriate). Boxer aims to make DOS games require zero configuration and zero knowledge of the emulator's esoteric inner workings. It automatically sets up drives appropriately; it also pre-configures hundreds of games that need custom emulation settings, with more automatic configurations added in each new version. If needed, you can tweak common emulation settings (like CPU speed, emulation optimizations and mouse behaviour) directly while you play, using Boxer's inspector window. The inspector also lets you add and eject DOS drives by drag-and-drop, at any time while you're playing a game: this lets you easily hot-swap CDs and floppies for multi-disc games. To this end, Boxer also auto-mounts any CDs or floppies you insert while playing, and removes them from DOS once they're ejected. You can resize and zoom Boxer's window while you play, and toggle between rendering styles (HQx etc.) on the fly. Boxer's renderer has much sharper graphics than DOSBox at large window sizes, and has dramatically better fullscreen support: you can access the menu, dock and inspector window in fullscreen by unlocking the mouse, and switch back and forth to other applications easily from fullscreen. This is handy for checking up a PDF game manual for instance: which Boxer scans gameboxes for, and displays automatically in the Help menu for easy access. While you’re at the DOS prompt, the window displays a slide-out program launcher tray so you can run the game program with a single click; while you’re running a game installer, the tray displays installation tips instead to help you through common installer questions. Boxer has plug-and-play joystick support, letting you add and remove joysticks at any time with zero configuration. Boxer automatically corrects axis and button layouts for a number of popular HID controllers that are otherwise broken to the point of unusability with regular DOSBox. It also integrates with Joypad (http://getjoypad.com http://getjoypad.com) so you can use your iPhone or iPod Touch as a controller if you so desire. Boxer reimplements DOSBox's standard 2-axis, 4-axis, Thrustmaster and Flightstick Pro joystick modes, and adds a racing wheel emulation mode with axis behaviour designed for driving games (this mode uses tilt control in Joypad incidentally, which is a surprisingly cool way to play). Boxer's Flightstick Pro throttle emulation also has assists for gamepad thumbsticks and displays an on-screen throttle indicator. You can switch joystick modes on the fly while you're playing. Boxer also has built-in Munt MT-32 emulation: you'll need to find the ROMs yourself, but adding them to Boxer is just drag-and-drop. Boxer automatically enables MT-32 emulation for over 400 games, so there's no need to manually switch between MIDI emulation modes. Boxer's MT-32 emulation even displays the MT-32's LCD messages in a spiffy bezel - something no other emulator does to my knowledge. Boxer can also detect if you have a real MT-32 plugged into your Mac, and if so will automatically pipe MT-32 music to it (though not General MIDI - it can tell the difference). Apart from that, Boxer has the usual trappings of a Cocoa app: proper menus, sane keyboard shortcuts, integrated Apple Help and automatic application updates. I think that about covers it.

makmanalp 15y ago

It would be a smart move for gog.com to buy these guys out and also port it to linux and windows, and use it as their main steam-like thing (without the lockin). Edit: Oops, looks like it's open source already. Great!

driverdan 15y ago

While Boxer is great it isn't new. I'm surprised it hasn't gotten coverage on HN before.