A guide for using Dosemu2 to play Door Games on Mystic BBS

When you download Dosemu2 from the package repository you have the option to install two python scripts which are supposed to help you install FreeDOS or “OtherDOS”.  These are garbage so, don’t bother.

Instead, I would recommend that you download the FreeDOS 1.3 Legacy install *.ISO.  This image can be mounted under Windows 1x and from there you will want to extract “Command.com” and “Kernel.sys” from the FDOS_X86 folder and then copy the entire BASE/ directory from the PACKAGES folder.

There is a great YouTube video on the FreeDOS channel talking about how to install FreeDOS if you cannot boot from the CD-ROM.

How to install FreeDOS manually @ YouTube

We will use these files to build our FreeDOS 1.3 installation.  Just to keep things together, create a folder called FDOS/.  Extract everything from BASE/ into this folder and delete the SOURCE directory (this is the source code that we don’t need).  Command.com and Kernel.sys will reside in the root of FDOS and everything we extracted will be in their own folder.  This will give you everything you need to run FreeDOS. 

Adding the Dosemu2 Dependencies

When Dosemu2 boots there are several drives that it will add. 

For instance, one is the command shell (which is a symlink from command.com to comcom64.com) along with some required utilities and some extra files.  The “extra” files are what we need to get.  Look in the following directory on your Linux install

/usr/share/dosemu/dosemu2-cmds-0.3 (Grab fdautooem.bat)
/usr/share/dosemu/dosemu2-cmds-0.3/c (Grab fdconfig.sys)

Place these files into the root of FDOS with Command.com

Moving everything to Linux

Place everything inside your FDOS/ folder into the root of the .dosemu/drive_c folder.

You will need to create a symlink to the /usr/share/dosemu/dosemu2-cmds-0.3/dosemu folder in the root of .dosemu/drive_c/

ln -s /usr/share/dosemu/dosemu2-cmds-0.3/dosemu /home/mystic/.dosemu/drive_c

Note: or you can copy the folder

This may not be the correct of approved method but, it will make the setup much more consistent, especially when we start making changes to the drive assignments.  (foreshadowing anyone??)

You will need to edit fdconfig.sys and change all of the drive instances from d: to c:  the same with fdautoemu.bat, these are essentially your config.sys and autoexec.bat files and you will want to make sure everything is getting loaded correctly

For instance, the last line in fdconfig.sys will load the command shell into upper memory and load fdautoemu.bat.

At this point you should be able to load Dosemu2.  From the command prompt type “ver” and should reflect the FreeDOS command shell.  If you installed the FreeDOS bin/ folder you can also type “mem” and get a look at the default memory configuration.

You may also want to add a fossil driver and ANSI interpreter.  Add these to fdconfig.sys and set the paths accordingly. 

DEVICE=C:\X00\X00.SYS E
device=c:\nansi.sys

These entries will show up during the boot sequence

Below are the examples I am running.  You can compare these with what you have and should be able to figure out what needs to change.  Note the c:\dosemu folder references and the addition of this folder to the PATH.  This gives you access to the Dosemu2 commands so you can exit the emulator.

Fdconfig.sys

rem config.sys for DOSEMU + FreeDOS
rem must be copied to C:\
rem SWITCHES=/F
DOS=UMB,HIGH
dosdata=umb
lastdrive=Z
files=40
stacks=0
buffers=10
device=c:\dosemu\emufs.sys
device=c:\dosemu\umb.sys
DEVICE=C:\X00\X00.SYS E
rem device=c:\dosutils\bnu.sys /F
device=c:\bin\nansi.sys
devicehigh=c:\dosemu\ems.sys
install=c:\dosemu\emufs.com
shellhigh=command.com /e:1024 /k c:\fdautoem.bat

Fdautoeoem.bat

@echo off
rem autoexec.bat for DOSEMU + FreeDOS
path c:\dosemu;c:\bin
rem this is needed when booting from dosemu-freedos-bin
set TEMP=c:\tmp
if not exist %TEMP%\nul mkdir %TEMP%
prompt $P$G
rem uncomment to load another bitmap font
rem lh display con=(vga,437,2)
rem mode con codepage prepare=((850) f:\cpi\ega.cpx)
rem mode con codepage select 850
rem chcp 850
echo Welcome to dosemu2!
system -s DOSEMU_VERSION
echo     Build %DOSEMU_VERSION%
call exechlp.bat -ep