Non-Windows Simulations

The majority of our simulations were developed for DOS, some of them before Windows was even thought of. As Windows has developed over the years, Microsoft have deliberately made it more and more difficult for DOS applications such as these to run as originally intended. These problems began to show up in Windows XP, got worse with Vista, and made the situation impossible with Windows 7 onwards. We are now producing Windows simulations, but the cost of converting all our older programs would be prohibitive.

There is a simple solution, though. There are several ways to create a DOS environment within a Windows machine in which DOS programs will run as intended. Any of these should be quite satisfactory; the one we recommend is DOSBox, which is also available for Mac computers and those running Linux. This is Open Source software that makes your modern fast computer emulate a much older PC running DOS, and it does it very well. As well as fixing most problems with graphics and sound, it will let you run the Driver and Signal Box simulations in a window. It’s easy to install, and the default settings seem to work fine.

This or something similar is essential if you want to run our Driver or Signal Box simulations with Windows Vista or later.

The latest released version of DOSBox is 0.7.4, and you can download it from www.dosbox.com. You may do better, though, to try DFendR, DOSBox FrontEnd Reloaded, which provides a rather easier installation and setup. You can find more about this at dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net. Any order supplied on CD contains a copy of this, or it can be downloaded from the above link. It does make setting up the various DOSBox options a great deal easier. A set of instructions for getting started with DFendR is here.

If you look at the DOSBox configuration file dosbox.conf, you will find helpful comments explaining all the options. Sometimes they’re a little cryptic, but I’ve usually found Google can find an explanation somewhere. You can download here the configuration file we use.

If you haven’t ordered from us before, we strongly recommend downloading one or more of our sample programs to verify that they will run successfully on your system; that’s particularly important if you plan to run a Signal Box or Driver simulation.