Hi! In this mini-guide I'll describe how to run and play old DOS games on your computer in Windows. It is actually really easy!
You only need to download DosBox and the game you wish to play. Here is what to do to get started:
Go to the DosBox download page and click on Download Now.
Save the file somewhere and open it. It will run an installer. You can just keep clicking on "Next" and leave all the settings to their defaults. On the last screen you will click on "Install"
Feel free to launch DosBox from the desktop icon.
You will see that it will not do much yet. We will take care of that!
Next you will need to select a DOS game to download online. I prefer RGB Classic Games myself. They've carefully over time selected the best to represent in their high quality gallery of shareware titles. Some of these titles are the full version of the game, distributed with express permission of the original author. In this example I'm going to be downloading SkyRoads, but you can apply the following to any DOS game. I chose SkyRoads because even to this day I still love it's addicting ethereal music and it's blazing fast 3D arcade-style gameplay, and even while writing this article, can't wait to try it again!
In the description page, choose the file you'd like to download and save it to a location you'll easily find. I'll go with the full version of the game and I'll save it to my desktop.
Open the file you just downloaded by going to the folder location you saved the file and right click on it. Be sure to select "Extract All".
In the following window, you can specify a folder to extract the game into. I'll just leave it to defaults for now and click Extract. I'll also leave the checkbox on "Show extracted files when complete."
You will be greeted with a new window with all the files of the game. You can arrange the files by "Type" to find the Application executables.
Make sure your DOSBox icon is visible on the desktop. Then drag-and-drop the Application file to the DOSBox icon, and the game will start automatically!
Now the only thing left to do is make the window full screen so you can enjoy your game in its full pixel-glory. Press ALT and ENTER simultaneously to make DOSBox full screen. To exit full screen, repeat by pressing ALT and ENTER again.
Have fun and STEEM ON!!!
Trivia: SkyRoads was developed by a small independent Estonian company called BlueMoon Software originally in 1992, only a year after Soviet Union collapsed and Estonia became an independent country. Even to this very day they have had their website online. Amazing. You can visit Bluemoon Software here.
Please be sure to upvote and follow my posts if you like what I'm doing. I'd love to hear comments for ideas, suggestions, or general feedback. I will be posting more mini guides and cool stuff relating to retro gaming in the near future, stay tuned!