DOSBox
It is a cruel fact of life that as technology progresses, paving the way for us to see things on the computer screen we never thought possible, the games that first brought in the money to make this technology viable are rendered crippled, and in some cases even completely unplayable. The world of computers and the basic architecture of programs changed irreversibly upon the release of Windows 95...and quite unfortunately, that change came right as the Golden Age of adventures was winding down. The result was that most of our fondest memories were now based on the cursed Disk Operation System, otherwise known as DOS, otherwise known as the unstable and unpredictable O/S developers were glad to shoot and leave for dead. As the new millenium rolled around, all semblance of support for DOS has been eliminated from Windows, and with it support for the games we once loved the most.
Yet hope remains for those of us who can't seem to get out of the past. A lot of people who are a whole lot smarter than me at all this computer nonsense apparently love adventures just as much as I do, and they have both the will and the ability to do something about it. Fans of LucasArts games sing the praises of ScummVM, which allows nearly seamless support for almost all LucasArts games on even the newest computers running XP, as well as support recently added for some Revolution adventures and the Simon the Sorcerer games. A similar project, FreeSCI, is underway to support Sierra games, although it is still in earlier stages.
Unfortunately, even when they fully support all games they plan to, these programs will only cover about 40% of the Golden Age graphic adventures. What about Chronomaster? What about Rex Nebular? What about Blue Force? What about Star Trek: Judgment Rites? What about Dragonsphere? Is there any hope short of keeping a 486 in the closet?
Enter last Saturday night. I'm currently playing through the Police Quest trilogy for about the fiftieth time...although the trilogy always amounts to about two and a tenth, as I attempt in vain for the fiftieth time to somehow make the driving scenes of Police Quest 3 playable. MoSlo just isn't slow enough. Turbo just isn't stable enough. FreeSCI doesn't even support this era of Sierra games yet. The car is doomed to crash into the cool waters of Lytton and throw me before the mercy of the stern Jim Walls before I can so much as blink (and I know you're nodding if you've played the game). And it's certainly not alone in Sierra games that depend on processor cycle technology that was outdated when Bill Clinton assumed office. I guess there really was a time when people just didn't think computers could be (or needed to be) any faster.
But then, and I don't even remember where, I heard about this program called DOSBox, and supposedly it was going to turn my computer into the equivalent of a 386-33, which is exactly what I played the original PQ3 on. Of course, it's not the first program to make such a promise, and I had no reason to believe it was going to make my Sierra games any more playable than VDMSound, CPUKiller, etc...
Miracles do happen, though. In the past week, I have successfully played through not only Police Quest 3, but also Space Quest IV and Willy Beamish, two other notoriously unplayable games, all through the magic of DOSBox. Not only do owners of souped-up PC's now have an avenue to play their favorite old adventures, but DOSBox is also available for Linux and Macintosh.
DOSBox is not an emulator geared to any specific sort of adventure--or even any specific sort of software, for that matter. It is just a full, 386-era MS-DOS emulator. Right now it is at version 0.60, and as mentioned above it runs at about the speed of a 386-33 even on the fastest computers. Most pre-1994 Sierra games are fully supported as of this version and will run perfectly from beginning to end, without any speed glitches. The ultimate goal of the program, according to project admin Peter Veenstra, is to be a full PC emulator, and for nostalgia junkies like me it almost seems too good to be true.
The immediate future for DOSBox is to improve compatibility with newer games (for example, currently Gabriel Knight 1 is not supported) and improve speed (a 386-33 is still painfully slow for games like Leisure Suit Larry 6); however, the developers are committed to maintaining a functional speedup/slowdown option, to avoid the emulator itself running too fast and defeating the whole purpose.
Ultimately, DOSBox will render every other brand-specific emulator useless. It will run every DOS-based game, in every operating system, and it's already far ahead of most emulator projects. Finally, something has given me an excuse to dust off games I never thought I'd get to play without finding an old computer somewhere. For those who enjoy inhabiting the pawn shops and exchange stores, looking for games far too old even for clearance bins, DOSBox is one of the greatest programs ever created, and well worth a download for any adventure gaming fan.
DOSBOx can be downloaded for all operating systems at the DOSBox website. If you have any stories of getting old adventures to run, I'd love to hear about them. Until next time...happy adventuring!
