Does anyone know how to use Dosbox?

[Gleeok]

I'm trying to play wizardry 4 with Dosbox.There are 6 "diskette" files in the wiz4 folder. To make this easy I put Dosbox and wiz4 folder in c: then I open Dosbox.
The next 15 min is basically me banging my head against the wall screaming "what the f@#! do you want from me!"
I've read the read me file, and it might as well of been in marklar. ;P
I am obviously a complete dos retard. Is there a simple and easy way to play this game? -Just pretend I wrote this in crayon with the e and a reversed:)

[Beldaran]

I've used Dosbox many times to play older games. However, I found the help file very helpful, so I don't know how else to advise you. Anything I would say would likely be a quote from the help file.

[some quick googling occurs at this point]

You might check out this tutorial (http://www.dosgames.com/forum/about5443.html). It's based around two different games, but some of the technical advice might be helpful.

Use google. There are lots of pages of people getting help on Dosbox. I think there's a wiki too.

[Gleeok]

Well this works fine...
[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount c c:/games
c:

then I open Dosbox and type cd wiz4. That also works...
Then anything after that is not a valid command.
any combination of wiz4_d1.dsk seems to fail.
the names of these files are wiz4_d1 through d6 with a .dsk at the end.

excuse me, I have to shoot myself in the head now...

[DarkDragoonX]

Try using a frontend, such as D-fend (http://members.home.nl/mabus/dfend.htm). It allows you to use DOSbox in a much more friendly environment than dicking about with command lines.

EDIT: Should you download D-fend, download the second one on the list, the version that includes a setup wizard and a manual. It should make things easier.

[Beldaran]

I don't think you can open .dsk files with Dosbox. You need to somehow install the program. My experience has been that dosbox is for running executables.

Here (http://www.bluemsx.com/blueforum/viewtopic.php?p=5105&sid=39d08625ddf0d9e2c7f75a3098024f09) is a posisble helpful thread. Try googling for more on .dsk files and their autostarting capacity. I don't think you can just run a .dsk from dosbox.

[Nicholas Steel]

dosbox wiki
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php

[Gleeok]

I have been walking in circles for hours now. I am tired, I am defeated. I do not pass go, I do not collect two hundred dollars. I give up.
It will only let me open .exe files, NOT .dsk files. dosbox website says that all these games run on dosbox, however on that list are many games with only .dsk files. D-Fend is super cool but doesn't solve this. I have tried Apple pc 2.52 which was VERY easy to use, but is buggy for me and the game freezes over and over again in the same places. Next up was Appwin. Way faster than apppc, but it wont let me save my game. Also sound wouldn't work on either.

I suppose I should ask what type of Apple emu you guys are using(if you even have one) and DarkDragoonX, how were you able to play this?-I'm assuming you don't have an old apple of course-

[Nicholas Steel]

dsk files are obviously for a different system... and are not for DOS.

*.exe *.com *.bat files are DOS executables... anything else cant be run as a program.

try looking for the DOS version of the games your after playing... maybe the files are compressed and you need winzip or something to decompress the files?

[DarkDragoonX]

Okay, here goes...

I'm 99.9% certain that I would be the victim of the forum equivalent of being shot in the head were I to post a link to a Wizardry IV download or the code list, so I'm just going to assume you have the game files and a copy of the code list already. Since you have .dsk files (which I hadn't noticed before), you probably got your hands on disk images of the Apple II version.

So, the emulator I would use is available at Zophar's Domain (http:www.zophar.net) (contains emulators, but no ROM files and whatnot, should be safe to link). Grab yourself a copy of Apple II Oasis, a very nice emulator. Unzip it, run the setup program. Try running the program and you''l find you need an Apple II ROM. Go and get one, I'll wait.

You back? Good. Now, unzip the ROM image into the base directory of your Apple II Oasis installation, and the .dsk images of Wizardry IV into the Disk Images folder. Run the emulator.

Press F3 to bring up the options menu. Tweak it however you like. In particular, go to the "Colors" tab and set the graphics to "clear" instead of "realistic." Now, press F4 to open the disk image launcher. Select the first wizardry disk. Close the emulator and reload it. Wizardry should launch. S)tart the game. Wait for a bit. Bugger. It wants scenario disk B, does it? Well, hit F4 again and load disk 2. Wait a bit again. Now it wants scenario disk A. Okay, F4, load disk 1 again. Go through a couple menus, and it will ask for disk B again. Bastards. Well, you know the drill by now. F4, load up disk 2, etc.

Anyway, at this point you should be up and running. Good luck!

[Gleeok]

Thanks DarkDragoonX you = awesome.
As for the dosbox i'vr learned three things: I'm an idiot, Dos is not supposed to work that way, and i'm an idiot.
As for everything else not working, its probably some kind of Rom Karma. Thats what I get for trying to play a game for free. Usually I ahte playing roms, but in my defense this game is extremely rare and old.
thanks everyone for your help.
-N