DOSBox Help

This page was last updated in 2013. It appears there are now at least two other alternatives to DOSBox, both of which are based on DOSBox. DOSBox was focused on game playing. These newer alternatives are not, but for non-gamers they offer features not available in DOSBox.

The two alternatives are vDos and vDosPlus, with a major difference being that vDosPlus allows long file names as opposed to the DOS 8.3 file naming convention.

Since the DOS W&B program doesn't use long files names, either DOSBox version can use it.

Terry    2018-06-28

Windows Vista & Windows 7 64-bit versions will not run a DOS program. However, DOSBox does run on those Windows versions and will allow you to run the DOS W&B program on a 64-bit machine. Also, though the 32-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 will run a DOS program, they don't allow DOS full-screen mode, which means that in addition to allowing only a small-screen window, they cannot use the DOS graphics to optionally display the operating envelopes. However, both the DOS graphics and full-screen are available in DOSBox.

DOSBox is free, open source, and available at http://www.dosbox.com.

I recommend using the DOSPRN compatible build available at http://www.dosprn.com/special/DOSBox_Megabuild6-win32-installer.exe in case you should also want to also use DOSPRN (which I'll talk about later).

The default for DOSBox is to come up showing a prompt for the root of a virtual Z: drive, not your C: drive. You can tell DOSBOX to mount your C: drive, but allowing access to your entire C: drive is not a good idea. Instead, mount a virtual C: drive that points to the folder containing the DOS W&B. You can then switch to the virtual C: drive and run the W&B. For example, if the W&B program and data is in your harddrive's C:\wb folder and the program is named wbxxx. The following commands do that:

mount c c:\wb
c:
wbxxx

You can put these commands into the autoexec part of the DOSBox configuration file—currently dosbox-0.74.conf—found in C:\Users\username\AppData\DOSBox, and they will be executed when you bring up DOSBox. Make the autoexec look like:

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount c c:\wb
c:
wbxxx

If the computer you're using DOSBox on has a numeric key pad, be aware that when DOSBox starts, it turns off the NumLk feature in such a way that the operating system is unaware of the change. To use the keypad for numbers, do the following:

1. If NumLk was on before you started DOSBox, press the NumLk key to turn off the NumLk feature so that the hardware and the operating system are synchronized to the off state. Ignore this step if NumLk was already off before starting DOSBox.
2. Now press the NumLk key to turn on the NumLk feature for both the hardware and the operating system. The numeric key pad will now respond normally.

You can't print directly from DOSBox, but you can use a utility program (for example, Notepad) to print the WB1, WB2, or WB3 files the W&B program writes to your harddrive. However, a more convenient solution is to install DOSPRN (www.dosprn.com) along with DOSBox. Make the following additional configuration file changes to use DOSPRN:

1. Change the [parallel] section of dosbox-0.74.conf to:

   [parallel]
   parallel1=file append:c:\temp\prnspl
   parallel2=disabled
   parallel3=disabled

2. If you have no C:temp on your harddrive, you need to create one. Remember that folders and file names in Windows are case-insensitive, so C:Temp is the same as c:temp. Do not create a "prnspl" folder or file within C:\temp. DOSPRN will take care of that.
3. Open DOSPRN and change the Spool filename to C:\temp\prnspl.
4. Make sure your STATION.CFG file in the W&B folder says that you have a DOS printer.

If everything is done correctly, when you complete the F8 report dialogue, a W&B report will start printing as well as being written to your harddrive.