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Running DOS games on OS X

G

garblot

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I don't know if this is possible, but is there any way to run DOS games (i.e. gorilla.bas) on OS X? If so, how?
 
garblot said:
I don't know if this is possible, but is there any way to run DOS games (i.e. gorilla.bas) on OS X? If so, how?
Click to expand...


Think the first answer would be Parralles or bootcamp, with them both you can install windows XP, XP has a command line that will very likely be able to run the dos game. You can also try to install dos itself on Parallels.

DOSBox migth also be what you are looking for, never tried it though.
 
I downloaded DOXBox, but i couldn't figure out how to work it. The gorilla game is a .bas file, and I don't know if it will work. The DOSBox Web site, however, said that it worked. Do you know if DOSBox can work through Rosetta?
 
gorilla.bas is an old Microsoft game made in QBasic. One of the key pieces of code I had when i taught myself programming about 9 years ago. That and nibbles.bas lol.

Anyway, these are wicked games but you'll have to somehow emulate QBasic.exe to get them running unless theres a QBasic compiler for Mac OS (doubt that though).
 
If you've got a QBasic-enabled machine handy, you can compile the .bas to a .exe and run it in DOSBox.

In theory, anyway ... 🙂
 
ChrisBrightwell said:
If you've got a QBasic-enabled machine handy, you can compile the .bas to a .exe and run it in DOSBox.

In theory, anyway ... 🙂
Click to expand...


Yeah good idea. You'll need something other than the first version of QBasic though. I remember QBasic 4.5 onwards having a good/fast compilers.

I'll like to know how this all works out.
 
I'm afraid that I'm not very tech-savvy. QBasic? Compiler? How does one even use DOSBox?

I have an old Windows 95 machine that was recently upgraded to 2000 so it could join the network. Would that work? I think I also have a Windows 95 laptop lying around somewhere under a bunch of stuff. It might still work.
 
I'm pretty sure qbasic used to come with dos 5 and earlier (I think - its been a while now)

If you get some old dos boot-disk images for your dosbox, try just typing qbasic at the command line and hoping. then open your gorilla game in the rudimentary gui. I seem to remember qbasic coming with about 4 sample programs, gorilla being one of them. hope this helps
 
Eraserhead said:
DOSBOX sounds like the best option. See my post here (#3) for more details. Dosbox is currently PPC only though.
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I agree with this. Although the official build is PPC only (and very slow) there's a Universal version out there - http://mac.punknews.org/dosbox. I'm not sure how good that is - I'm using an earlier Intel-only version.

Eraserhead said:
I downloaded DOXBox, but i couldn't figure out how to work it. The gorilla game is a .bas file, and I don't know if it will work. The DOSBox Web site, however, said that it worked. Do you know if DOSBox can work through Rosetta?
Click to expand...
What exactly didn't work? Try the UB I linked above and see if it works.
The PPC version does work in Rosetta but the default (slow) settings take up 80+% CPU when idle so there's no leeway for increasing the speed. The Intel version I'm using takes up about 16% when idle.


Edit: I downloaded the UB I linked above and it seems to work fine.
 
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