DOS ain't dead
==============
By K.G. Orphanides.
Posted Feb, 2024

The last stand-alone version of MS-DOS was released in 1994, so you
might be surprised to know that a commercial DOS game came out on
Steam in 2023. Hadrosaurus Software's The Aching, is an otherworldly
horror adventure with 16-colour graphics, an arrow key and text
parser interface, and hardware support for the Tandy 1000, a PC
released in 1984. You can play it on Raspberry Pi, or anything else
that'll run the DOSBox emulator

No one really uses MS-DOS any more, but the modern, open-source
FreeDOS ships with every copy of DOSBox, and you've quite probably
used that. Most modern DOS developers use DOSBox and its forks for
testing, so they can rapidly spot bugs and iterate solutions.

The year 2023 in DOS also saw the release of Damien "Cyningstan"
Walker's stylish Barren Planet, a turn-based, space
exploitation-themed strategy game in which rival mining corporations
battle for control of resources, with some of the best four-colour
CGA graphics we've ever seen. Cyningstan has also released a range of
tools and libraries to support DOS games development in C, as well as open-sourcing his older games.

<http://dos.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/7/barren-planet>

<https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/articles/magpi.cc/cyningstan>

Juan J. "Reidrac" Martinez, developed Gold Mine Run! in C and
cross-compiled from Linux to DOS, using DJGPP to target 32-bit (i386)
DOS. He also open-sourced the game's code to help other developers.

<https://git.usebox.net/gold-mine-run/about/>

But you don't have to use C. Tiny DOS city-builder Demografx was
developed in Microsoft QuickBasic 4.5, an IDE released in 1990, which
you can run on Raspberry Pi in DOSBox if you can find a copy.
Microsoft's more common QBASIC and GW-BASIC languages are no longer
available, but PC-BASIC is a fully-compatible GW-BASIC interpreter
you can install on Raspberry Pi, and there's even a GW-BASIC
extension for Visual Studio Code if you want an IDE.

<https://coconutpizza.itch.io/demografx>

<https://github.com/robhagemans/pcbasic>

There's an entire community of developers making wildly distinct
games based on ZZT, a 1991 game creation system by Tim Sweeny, now
CEO of Epic Games. ZZT spawned a vast living ecosystem of DOS games
like WiL's Galactic Foodtruck Simulator, development tools like
KevEdit, and modding tools such as Weave.

<https://museumofzzt.com/>

<https://stale-meme.itch.io/gfs>

<https://museumofzzt.com/article/view/232/ closer-look-modern-zzt-editing-with-kevedit/>

<https://meangirls.itch.io/weave-3>

There are multiple DOS game jams to encourage would-be developers. In
2023, we saw the DOS COM jam, the DOS Games June Jam, and the DOS
Games End of Year Jam.

<https://itch.io/jam/dos-com-game-jam>

<https://itch.io/jam/dos-games-june-2023-jam>

<https://itch.io/jam/dos-games-end-of-year-jam-2023/entries>

The DOS renaissance still has a way to go before it catches up to the
C64, ZX Spectrum, and Game Boy development scenes, but the sheer
range of tools available makes it a very approachable space to
experiment in. If you want some inspiration, check out this DOS games
we've created.

<https://itch.io/c/3884754/dos-games>

FROM: <https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/articles/dos-aint-dead>
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Re: Dos Ain't Dead
By: Ben Collver to All on Wed Jul 17 2024 10:36 am

The last stand-alone version of MS-DOS was released in 1994, so you might be surprised to know that a commercial DOS game came out on Steam in 2023. Hadrosaurus Software's The Aching, is an otherworldly horror adventure

Is it actually meant to run on DOS? I don't think there's a Steam client for DOS, is there? I'm just curious if it's meant to run on actual DOS, and if so, does Steam let you download files to copy over to a DOS PC? Or does it run in a pre-configured DOSBox? I've seen some old DOS games on Steam that are delivered as a pre-packaged DOSBox setup to run on modern versions of Windows & such.

Nightfox
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No one really uses MS-DOS any more, but the modern, open-source

I use MS Dos 6.22 daily on my 286 on which I loging to my favorite BBS and check the message boards I'm interested in.

The last stand-alone version of MS-DOS was released in 1994, so you
might be surprised to know that a commercial DOS game came out on
Steam in 2023. Hadrosaurus Software's The Aching, is an otherworldly

Looks like I'll be using it quite a lot over the weekend as I try out the new games you mention.

Thank you, I really would not have discovered this information myself. How/where did you find it?

... On all lasergrams: Don't forget the Zap code.

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Re: Re: Dos Ain't Dead
By: kirkspragg to Ben Collver on Wed Jul 17 2024 21:47:05
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Re: Re: Dos Ain't Dead
By: kirkspragg to Ben Collver on Wed Jul 17 2024 21:47:05

Looks like I'll be using it quite a lot over the weekend as I try out the new games you mention.

Cool! I'd like to read about how it goes for you.

Thank you, I really would not have discovered this information myself. How/where did you find it?

Ironically, i was actually searching for an update about the DOS Ain't Dead forum outage, and that's how i found this post.
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Re: Dos Ain't Dead
By: Nightfox to Ben Collver on Wed Jul 17 2024 10:43:09

Is it actually meant to run on DOS? I don't think there's a Steam client for DOS, is there? I'm just curious if it's meant to run on actual DOS, NF> and if so, does Steam let you download files to copy over to a DOS PC?
Or does it run in a pre-configured DOSBox? I've seen some old DOS
games on Steam that are delivered as a pre-packaged DOSBox setup to run
on modern versions of Windows & such.

I don't use Steam, so i can't say for sure, but from what i read it uses a preconfigured DOSBox, but is able to use the "system" DOSBox if desired.
This leads me to believe that the files could be copied out of steam and
onto real DOS hardware.

https://github.com/dreamer/boxtron

https://github.com/jazzmind/steamcsv
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