So here we are, all DOS'd up and ready for
action. Now what? Let's start by heading to DOS Games at bit.ly/MtSNia. Here
you'll find a wide selection of games that will run under DOS-based operating
systems; in this particular case, we've decided to pick Doom from the
list. Clicking the link for Doom downloads a zipped file containing the
relevant executables, but there's no way to transfer them over to the FreeDOS
VM. To make things easy, we unzipped the contents into a folder, Imaginatively
entitled 'Doom', and converted the folder Into an .iso using ISO Recorder (bit.ly/KfHqle).
By right-clicking on the folder and selecting 'Create ISO Image File' then
labelling the new .iso volume as 'Doom' and selecting 'CD', we can now launch
the folder as if it was a normal CD within FreeDOS VM.
Ahh
Doom. Now this is more like it!
With the created .iso on your host's hard
drive, select 'Devices' from the menu along the top of VirtualBox VM window.
Then click on 'Choose a Virtual CD/DVD disk file' from the submenu and point it
to your newly created .iso. Once that's done, wait for a few seconds and type
Into FreeDOS 'D:' to change drives to the virtual CD/DVD drive. With luck, you
should be able to type in 'dir', and see the contents of the .iso. After that
you just need to, usually, type in something like lnstall.bat.
Amazingly, Doom installed perfectly.
We left the defaults selected, Including the sound, which was SoundBlaster (IRQ
220 and so on) and we enjoyed getting shot to pieces all over again. So now we
know how to get a DOS program to work, what other titles are there for us to
play with? As well as Doom, here are a couple of other games we thought
were worthy of some attention.
Duke
Nukem 2. Classic DOS gaming
Somewhere in between classic Duke
and the unforgettable Duke 3D, there came Duke Nukem 2. Although
it didn't do quite as well as the other Duke titles, it's still a
favourite. To get it working, do the same as Doom: download, unzip Into
a folder called 'Duke' (or whatever) convert the folder to an .¡so via .ISO
Recorder, load up the .iso into VirtualBox and run lnstall.bat from within
FreeDOS. It works okay, but the sound was a little choppy, then it failed
altogether, but we made up our own sound effects after that.
Galactix
DOS
was designed purely for space shooters (that may not be true)
2D top-down space shooters were all the
rage at one time, and Galactix was one of the more top-notch versions
available. Point your collective browsers to bit.ly/LtZGBT to download
the zipped file. Do the same as the above games, but this time make sure you
have at least 600KB of conventional memory available before trying to play it.
DOS Apps
With the internet at our fingertips, it's
easy to get hold of virtually every DOS game ever conceived. Although licensing
and copyright may inevitably get in the way, there's also the chance to get
hold of some of those really cool DOS programs or applications that we used to
tap away at in the wee hours.
Breeze Word Processor
Breeze word processor was developed way
back in 1993 and is still available today from bit.ly/KYDeU7. It's a
pretty good word processor and contains most of the useful tools we expect to
see in a modern word processing application. All you need to do to get it
working is download the zip file from the site, unzip it into a folder and
convert the folder to an .iso, then load the .iso up into FreeDOS via the Devices
menu in VirtualBox. When the .iso is ready, create a folder on FreeDOS called
Breeze by typing 'md Breeze'.
Breeze,
the DOS word processor
Next, change into the Breeze folder with
'cd Breeze'. Your prompt should now be c:\Breeze. If it is, then type in 'xcopy
d:\*.* ' to copy the contents of the .iso into the Breeze folder. All that's
needed now is to type in 'Breeze' to run the program.
Developed in 1998, the original QuickView,
version 1.03b (real mode) is a superb media player for DOS-based systems. You
can find the relevant downloads from the QuickView site at bit.ly/LUIgP7. We
used the 1,03b version in our testing with FreeDOS and it worked perfectly,
albeit a little slow in comparison to a modern media player, obviously. Do the
same as with Breeze to get QuickView running, but you may want to consider
including an AVI in the folder before making it into an .iso. Be warned,
though, by default FreeDOS will only look at CDs, so you'll have to play around
a little to get a DVD working. Once you have the QuickView files copied over,
simply launch the program by typing in 'QV', then follow the on-screen help (at
the bottom of the screen) to navigate to the selected location of the movie or
image files you want to view.
A
media player for DOS, although the media played pretty poorly
There are tons of DOS dedicated sites, and
we've put some together in the boxout, so have a look around and see what you
can get running with FreeDOS. More importantly, have fun reliving your computing
days with DOS.
DOS sites worth visiting
Here are a few of our favourite DOS related
sites:
Vernon
Frazee
DOS 6.22 command line reference: bit.ly/
LkxWks
Abandonware
DOS
Great DOS games, all abandoned: bit.
ly/LQe983
Free
Classic DOS games
A site with some free classic DOS games,
oddly enough: bit.ly/LNeWZq.
DOS
Archive
A home for legacy DOS software:
bit.ly/MBFRtS.
Apogee
Software Archive
Full of Apogee DOS games: bit.ly/LUs3lp
