Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Hi Estel, in this case, the original maintainer is still around and willing to incorporate other's patches so I hope there's no need to push the new package by "brute force".

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

reporting back it works brilliantly but i had to set sound blaster emulation to get aod working with your config,
now im a very happy chappy, hmm i wonder if there is a way to stream my n900 screen to my smart tv that would be cool

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Sent to extras-devel. Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping I got it right.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

I gave him upload permissions. As long as I can continue running Win31 I don't mind.
But if you need help with anything do ask.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

lol :D

ten chars

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Since there haven't been any complaints, I guess the patch was okayish. :p Have been quite caught up with school and work related projects, but finally had time to set up Diablo SDK and roll up the package. Should be arriving in extras-devel shortly. Pretty much the same thing as with N900, just removed proximity sensor. Ctrl and shift can be mapped to right click and mouse roam, so sadly this doesn't offer anything to N800 users. Gonna look into using menu buttons when I have time.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Awesome!

On my N800, I've been using Xbindkeys to map
Zoom out key:
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3"

and

Zoom in key:
xmodmap -e "pointer = 3 2 1"

A little messy but it works good enough. :)

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Can someone please point me to resources explaining how to get the keyboard working properly on my N900?
I searched in vain. I cant even enter a :
I tried setting keyboard to english but no luck.
Also has someone tried to play Dark Forces? Is there a recommended conf?

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Erm, maybe setting up accelemymote to act as joystick, and mapping it for Dark Forces? Then You could play using accelerometer. I can't imagine any other playable way for Dark Forces, except for connecting mouse via bluetooth/hostmode.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Hmmmm now that you say it, you may have a point. I remembered it as a 3D Game without up/down like Doom. But now I think I was wrong.

Anyway, my first question was much more important. Can you pls help me? :)

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

You need to place and execute (via autoexec in dosbox config) a rover.sys file. I remember that there have been multiple of threads about it + many posts in this very thread, but I don't have it bookmarked anywhere (just installed and forget).

BTW, maybe its good idea to include mentioned rover.sys in dosbox package, in a way that it's installed automatically?. I see no much reason, for leaving it for manual install, especially, that it's practically required for proper Dosbox usage.

/Estel

[off-topic]Oh no, Dark Forces was much better and more "complicated" than doom. It was much more "real" 3D - with up, down, jumping, strafe'ing etc. AFAIK it was first game to introduce such "canon" FPS elements. Not to mention, that it has real plot, which couldn't be said about doom ;) IMO, doom was more popular only thanks to multiplayer, which Dark Forces lacked.[/off-topic]

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Are those rover.sys files attachments here on tmo or where do you get them?

Dark Forces was indeed lighyears better than Doom. I have the CD Version but haven't played it since the 1990s, so my memory has dimmed.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

So I decided to move my a** and after 30 seconds of searching:
http://depot.javispedro.com/dosbox/rover/

No irony here intended. I agree, that it's PITA. It should be included i dosbox package for sure.

BTW, remember, that after installing it, You'll be able to properly map keys as per dosbox keymapper, same way as with desktop version (see dosbox manual for details).

to automatically use it, just put:

...into Your autoexec part of Dosbox config. I have no idea if "us" is correct for keyboards without 4 arrows, but for sure it's working ok no matter of Your N900 language settings (You don't need to use US_us.utf8 for that to work).

/Estel

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Thank you so much.
BTW, I find it is always easier to find something again, than finding it for the first time.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

I added a new patch vertical_scaling to dosbox. This patch add the option of Mouse Vertical Scaling, in order to scaling the vertical component of the mouse movement. In the [sdl] section you have the option sensitivityaspect=%value%, which can vary from -1000 to 1000. Its default value is 100. The unit is percentage.

Some dos games as Realm of Arkania 1 will now work, If you set sensitivityaspect to 50.

I uploaded 0.74-0maemo6 to extras-devel.

Have fun!

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Thanks a lot!

Maye it be the case with Pirates! Gold too? It was always quite awkard re mouse control via touchpad. Any way to determine correct percentage, except for trial-and-error?

/Estel

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Would it be possible to have the left and right, 80x480 dead area on the screen, to be used as customized touch keys?

Having just an N800, I could really make good use of them. :)

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

I know something like that (even more - whole touchscreen was divided as 9 invisible buttons) on Symbian's Dosbox port, so it should be possible. not very convenient for use, though.

/Estel

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Would you at least consider this Estel? :)

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Me? Sure, but sadly, I'm not Dosbox maintainer/developer :( I'm afraid, that with me touching it's code and trying to implement something from symbian version (that I've seen only from user POV) could result in total catastrophe :)

I'm just poor little tester/user, when it comes to DosBox :)

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

I lost by backup copy of this and I keep getting an error of Dosbox not finding the config file.

I tried creating /usr/share/dosbox and put dosbox-0.73.conf in there but that didn't work.

Any help?

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

What about
/home/user/.dosbox ?

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Yeah, when I installed this it created /home/user/.dosbox but that's not where Dosbox looks for the config file. :(

I'm using the Diablo port by the way.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Hmm....

I seem to have installed 0.73-7maemo5.

That can't be right if I'm running Maemo 4, can't it?

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Okay. Got it.

I just needed /home/user/.rubybox/dosbox.conf

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Great port of DOSBox to N900. It still requires some development but it is an amazing piece of software!!!

I have seen a little problem. Even after loading the rover.sys keyboard layout, the numbers are still not detected by some games. For example, the GoldenAxe for DOS shows a text screen to select the graphics mode just before starting the game. It is not possible to select any of the options with the numbers, they are not detected by the game. However, in the dos prompt the numbers are correctly written. Any idea?

Thanks and continue the good job, javispedro.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

For Maemo 4 users.

dosbox goes in /usr/share/
and .dosbox goes in /home/user/

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Lately, I'm getting strange error in terminal, after running anything in dosbox:

Obviously, any midi-based sounds (for example, running sound for Prince of Persia 2) doesn't work. Other forms of sound are working.

I tried every possible combination of MIDI options in dosbox itself, as well as installing Pali's timidity++ daemon, to no avail. Also, I could swear, that this wasn't the problem before and everything was "just working", even without timidity. Any hints?

On the other note, for a long time I'm searching for a way to map >< keys (greater, lesser) to something in dosbox, to no avail. I have those things mapped to hardware keyboard for whole Maemo (just like keys F1-F12), but it doesn't work in dosbox (while more exotic things - like mentioned F1-F12 - are working flawlessly, without even using dosbox's mapper). mapper in dosbox allows to map only 'lesser'. Those keys are crucial for some games, like "Silent Service 2", and it makes me a sad panda to have not a way of binding them. Any ideas appreciated.

Cheers,
/Estel

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

DosBox's standalone mapper only maps keys to keyboard scancodes, so it can't map any key to "symbols" which would require modifiers to be pressed in order to be generated (e.g. on US layout at least <, > both require Shift to be pressed).

To be able to generate < you would need some "macro" that would press Shift, then ',', then release Shift, and I don't believe the DOSBox mapper supports that (at least the versions I worked with).

The rover.sys trick works at an alternate level (= DOS's keyb), where you can actually map keys to _strings_ and thus there's no problem if you want to configure a key to generate <, > or even the string "i can write äüö!".
Unfortunately, because rover.sys is basically emulating DOS's keyb, it will only work with programs that worked with DOS's keyb. This is the reason for e.g.:

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer. Yea, while searching, I've run into informations about <> keys working on different level, but it was very vague and I hadn't idea what do make out of it.

The game I'm interested in definitely works with DOS's keyb - numbers are working flawlessly (and stop doing so, if I skip keyb rover.sys us line). So, I understand that creating "custom" keyb.sys with those keys mapped would work? That's great to hear! Now I only need to find how the hell one creates DOS's keyb (duckduckgo/google time)
---

On the different record - I've noticed, that timidity as system wide daemon (timidity-daemon) does *not* work for Maemo, even after fixing dependency issues (it need freepats package, not timidity-freepats one). It pretends to start as daemon, but does nothing (in fact, 'status' command report, that it is not working, after all). So, no luck in getting working /dev/snd/seq to satisfy MIDI-requiring dos applications, yet.

Of course, I still doesn't have slightest clue, if it's reason for my errors in dosbox.

/Estel

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Apart from Google (try to find FreeDOS documentation, I remember it was somewhat better), there is also the following:

http://depot.javispedro.com/nit/dosbox/kc.tar.gz -- I ported FreeDOS's "key compiler" to ANSI C, so that you can build it on your N900 or a desktop. Includes Makefile. Also includes the original documentation which describes the key file syntax.

http://depot.javispedro.com/nit/dosbox/rover/ -- Source files for the rover.sys I created. They are not in UTF-8 but rather in DOS codepage 850, so they are hard to edit unless your editor supports that. An example of a somewhat good editor supporting such code page is DosBox's edit.com :)

You might want to use
http://depot.javispedro.com/nit/dosbox/rover/us.key
as a starting point for key file, but I don't really remember the syntax.... I however remember that every entry in [keys] should be like this:
where scancode is the "real" keyboard scancode (suffixed with C if it's a key that can be influenced by "caps lock"). For every plane, you can set either a command or a character. Commands are prefixed with ! (e.g. !0 is "command 0" which means 'use defaults').

Planes in the us.key file are:
1. Normal
2. Caps lock
3. Shift + N900's FN
4. FN

They are defined in the [planes] section (first two planes are implicit).

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Slightly off topic but are you guys aware of the FastDOSBox fork optimised for ARMv7?

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Did you manage to get this working?

I am more or less usings vi_'s keymap, based my design on his... So I have F1-F12 mapped fn + shift but these don't work very well in dosbox with rover.sys loaded but also not with the default keyboard loaded :(

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Having just returned to using dosbox, I am pleased to see some great improvements with regard to the mouse:

1. there is no more offset between a stylus tap and a mouse click. Reading through the thread, I can't find how/when this happened. Either way, thanks much.

2. it is possible to right click by pressing a configurable key (e.g. shift)

However, this is not well documented (there is also the SDL_Mouse_Relative entry in the .conf file - what does it do?), so the average user will have to plow through the thread (assuming he even knows of the new features). Should the wiki page be updated?

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Not yet, sorry. Too much women and booze projects, not so much time, so while I saved javispedro's nice instructions on personal notes in case TMO gets blown, I haven't had a chance to test it yet in practice.

If you want to try it, take your time - I'll gladly drink a vine of your efforts :D

/Estel

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

er... How does one obtain keycodes?

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Hmm... No traffic here for nearly four years... I wonder if anyone is still using DOSBox on their N900s...

Never mind, it might be worth a shot. Posting costs nothing (yet ;)).

As mentioned in another thread, I have recently rediscovered some old PC games. After playing for a while I noticed some... let's say interesting effects. The list is short but the blurb is rather long-winded. Sorry about that:

• Running DOSBox sucks the battery dry in no time. 30 minutes of DOSBox is like 8 hours on standby. 2 hours and the phone is dead. But that is hardly surprising, DOS is not really optimized for idling.
• When the screen timeout kicks in, DOSBox loses the mouse. Tapping on the screen is no longer registered. The screen does not need to blank out completely: it dims first for a few seconds before switching off, but the mouse is lost the moment is starts dimming. It had bugged me for a while - I went through hoops to kill and restart the application to get the mouse back - until I found that simply turning the screen on again by the slider on the side solves the problem.
  This effect can be observed immediately. Start DOSBox and wait for 30 seconds for the screen to time out.
• After a few hours of play and then leaving the game and exiting DOSBox (legally, through menu options and the "exit" command), I get back to the Maemo desktop, but the screen is all wrong: the wallpaper is gone, the icons descriptions are gone, the rotation lock setting is gone... I have to reboot the phone to get back to normal.
  This is accumulative. It does not need to be a single, several hours long session. I can play for two hours, exit, start again, play for 30 minutes, exit... After a few cycles like that, usually taking 2-3 days, I am guaranteed to get into the described situation. The best way to avoid it is a prophylactic reboot after every day of play, then the leak or whatever there is never has a chance to accumulate enough to trigger the effect.
  The fact that it accumulates over multiple instances of running and exiting DOSBox and the game makes me believe that it is not a leak in the game itself, but in something that keeps running after the game and DOSBox is terminated. Hildon desktop? The kernel?
• Sometimes,if ignored for long enough, the above effect can accumulate enough to corrupt the graphics inside DOSBox itself. Once that happens, it may no longer be possible to exit the game normally, it may need to be killed by brute force.
• A more lasting effect: the browser history is corrupted, although I have observed that in the past in unrelated circumstances. Any unexpected reboot can corrupt the browser history. You need to clear it.
• By far the most serious: I lost the receiver speaker. The phone rings, I answer - silence. Switch to a loudspeaker, OK. Switch to Bluetooth, OK. Switch back to the receiver, silence.
  I suspect a corrupt file in some package, but which one? How do I find out?

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

For the dimmer/mouse/lock switch problem I would look at the Maemo patches. Might be it's only checking for the lock switch. Haven't looked at it since I built the update for the ARM optimizations.

Not sure where to start on other issues. Could it be partly related to OOM?

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

That one happened to me a few times over the years with N900 without using DOSBox too - in fact when using only phone/messaging/microb since previous restart, so it might be something more generic (Nokia's alsa patches?).

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw
 

Yeah, I am suspecting a corruption due to an unexpected reboot, which was only indirectly related to DOSBox (when I had to reboot due to unresponsiveness).

How did you fix it? I would rather not reflash if I can avoid it.