I’m currently running Slackware 14_64 I’ve recently change lilo from the 80x25 text to 800x600x32 graphics mode. As a result, I have developed a problem with DosBox 0.74. From KDE it runs great. (in terminal mode) however, if I use Dosbox prior to loading KDE, the keyboard is all wrong. It’s like everything thing has been shifted to the left and down a row. The letter N is the Enter Key, with the left hand Alt key as the N key. The top row of letters (qwert) are numbers. Also everything to the right of the J key doesn’t do anything from what I can tell.

I have searched the web about key mapping. It seems to be mainly for people who want to remap a certain few keys. Also when most people complain about keys being wrong, they tend to be talking about 1-3 keys, not the whole board.

Here is what I’ve done to date. I’ve went into dosbox.conf and change keyboard to us103 from auto. I’ve also started dosbox in KDE using the –startkeymapping command. It created the keymap file with the keys mapped correctly. However, neither actions changed the result of booting up and starting DosBox without running KDE.

Has anyone else had this issue? Do we know if it’s DosBox rev level related or just DosBox as a whole. Lastly and more importantly, has anyone developed a cure lol.

Thanks in Advance for the help.

Ace

Dos also used code pages, which you loaded up in config.sys, and never knew anything about unicode :-(. cp 457=us; cp850 = international.

Try adding the line
. bashrc (/etc/bashrc or ~/.bashrc as appropriate)

to your ~/.bash_profile and see if it helps

BK! Thanks for the info. I can't find a bashrc or bash_profile file in my home directory or any other one for that matter. Should I make one? And is there a preference between the two?

Lastly your line was . bashrc (/etc/bashrc or ~/.bashrc as appropriate) Was the words in the () a comment or part of the command line?

Thanks Again.

Ace

No need to make. It was a wheeze, because terminals in X read ~/.bashrc or /etc/bashrc and consoles read ~/.bash_profile or /etc/profile or /etc/profile.d. The idea was to get your X locale settings in console.

OK, the long way: run from both kde terminal and console, and compare relevant differences. See if there's a language or something different, and if you have an icon for dosbox, see if there's switches included.

Well I have ran both conditions of printenv. From what I can make, there are several differences between terminal and prompt. But from a Font stand point the only thing I could find was the fact that KDE (X) uses a ghostscript. I did some homework and found that a ghostscript of 386 is designed for DOS coding and Windows 3.X However, apparently the gs command is for when in KDE only. When I tried it on boot up I got an error about missing some X component.

I've got a feeling this issue is bigger than me and I can't seem to find anything on the net. Given that I run from KDE most of the time, It's not that big of an inconvenience. I only tried it so I compensate for a graphics issue I have in KDE. When I use eclipse to program a console program, the screen won't switch to the correct screen resolution. I don't have that problem when I run the program from the prompt before KDE loading. I won't bore you with the drawn out story, I've started a thread a week or so back with no results. The option of working before loading KDE was a potential solution I was going to try.

Thanks for all the help though.
Ace

I sense the end of the road here.

I was thinking particularly about locale settings, as I thought they would influence the codepage chosen. Can you put a config.sys or autoexec.bat in dos box? That might handle it. IIRC there were three commands needed. It's been ~15 years since I farted with any of this, so this is _very_ rough at the edges.

Config.sys:
device=keyboard.sys
device=ansi.sys

Autoexec.bat:
mode con codepage prepare (codepage)
mode con codepage load (codepage)

ansi.sys gave the special characters (128-255), and was usually left out.

BK, thanks . I'll play around with the config.sys and autoexec.bat files. Like you I haven't messed with DOS for some years, though I still has an IBM P70 luggable I fire up on e every other week lol. I'll keep you posted one the out come. Thanks again and Happy Thanksgiving or it's equivalent where your at

Ace

haha - luggable. It's a long time since I heard that word. It's the American army version of portable - a massive lump of metal with a few chips in there and a noisy fan.

Lol true. Seem like space age technology at the time. I loved it so much I've kept it.
386
VGA gas plasma screen with abilily to hook up VGA monitor
60 meg HD
4meg ram
One 25 serial port
One parallel port
PS2 mouse port
Windows 3.1 IBM DOS 6.22
Oh and it was micro channel at that.
Yep others have come and gone in this household but it just keeps on keeping on lol

Micro Channel? It's an IBM PS2?

That's nearly as rare as EISA - and slightly less useful.

Yeah, but being able to take your Doom or MS Quick C on the go made it way too cool. I used to do some coding for a local computer shop, so being able to upgrade from a PS2 286 for free and still keep my new 8513 monitor made it too good to pass up. If you get curious, I found this site a while back

http://incolor.inetnebr.com/jshorney/p70.htm

Meanwhile I'll keep you posted on what I find with the DosBox keyboard issue

Ace

Well I figured it out. I opened the dosbox0.74.conf file and actually read it instead of "scan" it lol. I found something about "usescancodes: Avoid usage of symkeys, might not work on all operating systems." So I found a few lines down from that the usescancodes section and turned it from true to false and my problem went away. Now DOSBox works both in KDE as well as console prior to loading KDE up.

Hope this helps someone

Ace

I put one through my hands myself, it turns out. It died with hard disk errors, and I couldn't quite find the same enthusiasm you had for yours. Enjoy while it lasts, or sell it to a collector - somebody with your love of trailing edge technology and more money :-).