DOS/V emulation

[joncampbell123]

I think it might be a nice enhancement if DOSBox-X were to emulate the DOS/V extensions of Chinese/Japanese/Korean MS-DOS. Not sure who it would help, but perhaps there are games from that part of asia that might like benefit from that addition.

[Jarvik7]

Definitely agree. Japanese emulators tend to be of sketchy quality with a poor record of open source.

See also the predecessor to DOS/V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AX_architecture

[sikthehedgehog]

Reminds me, does anybody know what Rusty uses? There's a DOSJP.COM program that gets executed before the game itself (and yes, it runs under DOSBox just fine).

[fuel-pcbox]

There are some versions of PCem that runs DOS/V just fine. Apparently, it abuses the VGA a bit.

[joncampbell123]

Documentation is hard to find, but I managed to find a reference (in Japanese):

http://www.hackipedia.org/browse/Computer/Platform/PC,%20IBM%20compatible/MS-DOS/DOS%E2%88%95V

[landloafer]

It has been long time that the QuarterDeck's DEVICE.COM (now included in dosbox-x) can load DOS/V's (1) $font.sys within the dosbox environment. Some may prefer using a privately developed (2) $FONTX driver for later English DOS versions. These ways, dosbox can runs most DOS/V software that require FONT ROM.

Method (1) requires font library from actual DOS/V (if you have the DOS/V diskettes, you can also side load it as guest OS). Method (2) requires the user to generate new font library under your own DOS/V, PC98 or J3100. I think for copyright reason, it does not come with any font library. Otherwise, can try DOSVSV, an early font driver with its own fonts.

DISPV can be used if any program requires compatible DOS/V standard display driver, displaying double byte characters in DOS.

Don't know if it is worth the effort to including $FONTX and DISPV functions natively into dosbox.

[yksoft1]

There is an early 3rd party tool that implemented DOS/V font driver that called DOSVFONT.COM. It perfectly worked under DosBox SVN I remember.

[landloafer]

I believe native DOS/V in dosbox-x maybe useful for using Japanese SHIFT characters in dosbox prompt. Japanese Windows 3.1 does not run in dosbox-x (without a guest OS) as there are system files in Japan characters.

[landloafer]

Someone patched a Win3.1 E & J hybrid that does NOT required FONT ROM, DISPV driver & SHIFT characters!

[landloafer]

[yksoft1]

@landloafer I remember that patching some INT 21h AH=66h calls in WIN.COM and WIN.CNF is enough to made JWIN31 to work in DOS without DOS/V. However some files with SJIS characters will fail to open using some Win16 APIs.

[landloafer]

If someone knows how to set this in dosbox?
"COUNTRY=081,932,C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS"

A DOS/V program bugs me with Invalid COUNTRY setting !!!

[yksoft1]

$disp.sys will also complain this.
There seems no way to load COUNTRY.SYS in Dosbox and Dosbox-X's DOS at all.

[Pehat]

@sikthehedgehog , I've tried to google dosjp.com but haven't found anything. Can you tell me where can I get this program?

[aybe]

in DOS/V ?
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=49934&p=529043

[sikthehedgehog]

@Pehat it came with the game I mentioned (it's directly run by it)

[landloafer]

Princess Maker 1 came with its own font driver making it work natively in both En DOS and DOS/V.

[landloafer]

#100 (comment)

@yksoft1 Natriumなソフトウェアのページ's CHEJ JP can set the right country code to make $disp.sys work

[Serentty]

So, what is the biggest challenge to implementing this as part of DOSBox-X? I imagine that the driver would need to be rewritten, and a free font would need to be found, right? GNU Unifont would probably suffice for the font, but I'm not sure if there's enough interest to rewrite the driver. Is there anything that I'm missing?

[yksoft1]

@joncampbell123

https://github.com/nanshiki/DOSVAXJ3

[Wengier]

I have already incorporated/adopted the Japanese DOS/V emulation (also JEGA emulation) from DOSVAXJ3 to DOSBox-X in #2576, minus the IME feature which apparently requires its own modified SDL1 library. DOS/V Japanese emulation should work by setting dosv=jp.

[Wengier]

Even though DOS/V emulation is mostly used for the Japanese language, it is not necessary so, and the DOS/V emulation in DOSBox-X has been extended to support Chinese (Simplified or Traditional) and Korean languages too (by setting dosb=chs, dosv=cht, or dosv=ko), and system IME support for CJK input methods in Windows SDL1 builds, although they may require the setting videodriver=directx to work.

[Wengier]

DOSBox-X 0.83.15 has already been released, with support for both DOS/V (with separate Chinese/Japanese/Korean modes) and JEGA (AX). A screenshot for Japanese DOS/V (dosv=jp) is available below:

And a screenshot for Simplified Chinese DOS/V (dosv=chs or dosv=cn):

Also a screenshot for Traditional Chinese DOS/V (dosv=cht or dosv=tw):