I started working on this menu system for DOSBOX in 2014 cuz I felt like all the DOSBOX frontends sucked, and I wanted an efficient, easy to use, and portable DOSBOX that could be put on a USB and plugged into either my Windows or Linux system without hassle. I worked on it sporadically over the years, but being grounded by the government gave me plenty of time to finish it up.
The menu works by calling a system of batch files. So there are sub menus, and sub sub menus, and any program that is run will return you to the sub menu from which it was run. You can then navigate and run a different program. It's pretty intuitive, I think. The project split into 4 different projects, because I'm fucking mental, apparently. I can't have my peas touching my mashed potatoes and I can't have my Command & Conquers touching my Dooms, not without headslapping, thumbsucking anxiety. At one point there was a whole other menu that let you do shit like change the scalers, but I removed it because pixel-smoothing scalers on a DOS game is just an unacceptable level of faggotry. You have to take your pixels like a man, goddammit!
I consider this project and my time investment in it to have been one part educational exercise, nine parts Autism. I don't see why a clever programmer couldn't use it as a template to automate personalized Dosbox menus. Maybe something like that already exists? - teh fuck I know.
The 3D / FPS menu system:
Hexen 2 in DOS, just as God intended:
I can never remember these:
DOS prompt, where all the heavy lifting takes place:
Bruh:
RPG menu system:
Dungeons & Dragons? Never heard of it:
Gil Gerard's Buck Rogers was the hero we deserved:
Heftier RAM reqs, and because you can't change memsize on the fly in DOSBOX, these are in a diff setup:
Strategy menu system:
Archers!!!:
Oregon Trail - you will die of dysentery and like it!
What a typical menu batch looks like:
What a typical game batch looks like - cycles set, image mounted, program run, then image unmounted and a return to the batch that called it:
GUS sounds great for the games that properly support it, but will literally break everything else. So, it's turned on and off on the fly:
When I think of all the time I spent on this:
The menu works by calling a system of batch files. So there are sub menus, and sub sub menus, and any program that is run will return you to the sub menu from which it was run. You can then navigate and run a different program. It's pretty intuitive, I think. The project split into 4 different projects, because I'm fucking mental, apparently. I can't have my peas touching my mashed potatoes and I can't have my Command & Conquers touching my Dooms, not without headslapping, thumbsucking anxiety. At one point there was a whole other menu that let you do shit like change the scalers, but I removed it because pixel-smoothing scalers on a DOS game is just an unacceptable level of faggotry. You have to take your pixels like a man, goddammit!
I consider this project and my time investment in it to have been one part educational exercise, nine parts Autism. I don't see why a clever programmer couldn't use it as a template to automate personalized Dosbox menus. Maybe something like that already exists? - teh fuck I know.
The 3D / FPS menu system:
Hexen 2 in DOS, just as God intended:
I can never remember these:
DOS prompt, where all the heavy lifting takes place:
Bruh:
RPG menu system:
Dungeons & Dragons? Never heard of it:
Gil Gerard's Buck Rogers was the hero we deserved:
Heftier RAM reqs, and because you can't change memsize on the fly in DOSBOX, these are in a diff setup:
Strategy menu system:
Archers!!!:
Oregon Trail - you will die of dysentery and like it!
What a typical menu batch looks like:
What a typical game batch looks like - cycles set, image mounted, program run, then image unmounted and a return to the batch that called it:
GUS sounds great for the games that properly support it, but will literally break everything else. So, it's turned on and off on the fly:
When I think of all the time I spent on this:
