Burning a DOS floppy disk

[3DH]

Translator:
Hi,
I just bought a USB floppy disk drive and wanted to prepare my favorite programs and games. Does DM have any copy protections? I first transferred the files from DOSBox to a floppy, then burned the IMG, but in both cases I can't start the game. Upon entering a dungeon, the game asks for a Dungeon Master floppy.

[ChristopheF]

The PC version does not have any copy protection. Maybe you have an issue with the file and folder names?

[3DH]

I don't know. I did the same with the game Maniac Mansion and this one works without problems.

[Sphenx]

Do you mean that you have DM data on the floppy disk and run DOSBox with the mounted floppy disk drive ? Could it be a drive letter assignment issue ? (though the game would probably don't start if that was the case). Do you run it from a bat file or mounting it manually from DOSBox ? I don't know in which case the game asks for the floppy. If some file is missing I get direct crash or error message.

[3DH]

After formatting the floppy, I named it "DM" and burned the IMG with the game, nothing changed. After the intro and entry, the game asks for a floppy disk.

http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/75

[Sphenx]

I got the result you described only when mounting the actual data to A or B. Probably special checks for floppy drives. Did you mount the floppy disk to A ?
Could you try a different letter, like C ? even if the data is on floppy, the game would consider it is the hard drive. Hope this works.

[3DH]

I'm using DOSBox and these commands:

Code: Select all

MOUNT a a:\ -t floppy
a:
dm -pm -sb

I'll check the c drive tomorrow.
I wanted to run this on real MS-DOS, but my Win98 needs drivers for this USB FDD.

[ChristopheF]

Maybe an issue between the floppy disk drive being USB and/or the driver. The game may use DOS interrupt calls that are not working with your hardware.
Can you share the IMG file you have used so we can have a look?

[3DH]

https://archive.org/details/001008-DungeonMaster

PS. FDD in DOSBox can only be as a.

[Sphenx]

I say:

Code: Select all

MOUNT C a:\ -t floppy
C:
dm -pm -sb

[3DH]

Sphenx, this works, but it doesn't even use FDD. And how will such a floppy disk behave in real MS-DOS?

Ok, FDD was quiet because everything was already in memory. But for some reason the sound didn't work.

The copied files from the floppy to the hard drive work fine in DOSBox, so the IMG file seems fine.

[ChristopheF]

I tried mounting your img file with this command:

Code: Select all

imgmount a d:\Disk1.img -t floppy

in both:

• Dosbox 0.74: after clicking "Enter", the game asks for the game disk endlessly
• dosbox-x December 26, 2022 https://dosbox-x.com/ : works perfectly

Conclusion: dosbox 0.74 floppy emulation is not good enough for the game to detect it correctly as a floppy disk
Solution: use dosbox-x, or in dosbox 0.74 do not use a floppy and run the game from hard disk

[3DH]

To be honest, I'm more interested in running on real MS-DOS. Emulation is not a big problem.

[3DH]

I found drivers for FDD on Win98. Unfortunately in MS-DOS mode I can't get into FDD anyway, but I can run the game through W98. The game asks for a floppy disk just like in DOSBox.

[ChristopheF]

If you want to play in real MS-DOS, you should use a real floppy disk drive, not a USB one which requires some kind of emulation built-in the USB driver. I suppose that's where the issue is: the DOS calls may not work exactly as they did back at the time with actual hardware.
I checked the source code: the game detects if it is running from a "fixed disk" (a hard disk) or not with a DOS call. If it is not running from a fixed disk, it assumes it is running from a floppy disk and requires the volume to be named 'DM'.

[3DH]

I'm not sure. Mainly because MS-DOS 6.22, Win98 Boot Disk and Maniac Mansion run without problems on USB FDD. Maybe DM works differently, I don't know.

[3DH]

On this very nice emulator called 86box:
https://86box.net/
https://youtu.be/ySo9JY-WpRc
IMG file works fine. So either something breaks down during copying, or as you write, it's a problem with USB FDD.

[slickrcbd]

I'm surprised that this is about the PC version, I didn't think it was copy protected.


The Apple IIGS version most definitely does have copy protection. I was never able to copy the damn disk. When the Asimov FTP site came out half way through my high school years I was finally able to download a cracked copy to play on backup disks, but I never was able to make a working copy of my own original.