DOSBox integraded into a source port?

[banjiepixel]

I really don't understand why so many people are asking "why?". Seem highly irrelevant and unproductive to me. What if it is just a thing I want? I am really starting to lose my motivation from constantly being asked to justify something I want to make for my personal enjoyment. People asking "what?" are fine, it is a strange concept and I am really struggling with this type of more technical language.

[LuciferSam86]

IMHO I would start from point 0. Learning software development, even before trying to put the idea on a piece of paper, even asking yourself "why" or even making a mock-up of what you want to do, writing down the actions.

A flowchart would help too, once you have a clear idea of you want to do.

[Graf Zahl]

13 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

I really don't understand why so many people are asking "why?"

 

Shouldn't it be obvious that nobody here understands what you want to achieve?

 

[TimeOfDeath666]

Guy's gotta lay off the drugs.

 

If you want to play the original game, use dosbox. If you want to play with new features and menus, use a source port.  It's one or the other. Also there's an idclev code for changing maps.

[Blzut3]

2 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

I don't want some basic frontend for DOSBox with mouse based controls, boring Windows-style looks and not being made to launching specifically Doom and maybe some other related games. I want make DOSBox launcher that would actually make me use DOSBox. And that would be a Doom source port, most likely crispy doom based, with an ability to seamlessly launch DOSBox game sessions within it. And have my own custom expanded Doom menus.

This basically reads to me like "I want Windows 3.11, but done on top of the Doom source code because reasons."

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

2 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

What if it is just a thing I want? I am really starting to lose my motivation from constantly being asked to justify something I want to make for my personal enjoyment.

I think people are really starting to lose their motivation to explain that "thing you want" usually ends up being impossible and/or an entirely pointless waste of time. It's not just "thing you want", it's "thing only you wants". Especially when your ideas are usually made up of dream logic and replies are usually incredibly condescending. I'm just letting you know from an outside prespective why your posts are recieved this way.

[Jayextee]

2 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

I really don't understand why so many people are asking "why?".

I didn't, I asked
 

 

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

To what end, and what would this offer that a sourceport cannot?

Because, really, I have not the slightest clue what it is you're positing the idea of or what it would achieve, and therefore it's literally impossible to give you any advice as to how to achieve your goals and indeed what it is you're hoping to achieve (or, by the looks of this post and your previous posts, get someone else to do).

 

Before you go on the defensive, again, about this; sometimes you gotta help us help you, man.

[Arsinikk]

2 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

I really don't understand why so many people are asking "why?"

People are asking why because they don't understand why you would want what you've asked for. There's a reason why most people don't use or want to use a DOS-like interface. If you want a DOS-like interface, just use DOSBOX to emulate DOS itself, it's as simple as that.

 

2 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

Seem highly irrelevant and unproductive to me. What if it is just a thing I want? I am really starting to lose my motivation from constantly being asked to justify something I want to make for my personal enjoyment.

"why" is actually a very important question to answer, especially for sourceport developers. They have created sourceports for a particular reason and/or to solve something that was lacking before making their own sourceport.

 

Unfortunately, if you want something that's super niche and is something you and only you want, you would have to make it yourself. Especially since what you've been asking for isn't what's in demand. Then again, how would we even know what you want, if you don't answer the most important question: why.

 

I can see why some people would want the DOS experience, but we already have DOSBOX to provide that. If you really wanted a sourceport like experience in DOS, I'd suggest just using VULD and perhaps an executable hack like DOOM32 to be able to play some more modern limit-removing WADs.

 

Either way the reason most people have strayed away from DOS is because it is quite a bit of work to set up correctly, and if you aren't willing to put in the effort, frankly you shouldn't be dabbling in DOS at all imo.

 

Personally I have set up VULD and just have a few BAT files set up to just run custom WADs in Doom32 at the click of a file.

[jazzmaster9]

I wonder if can program Dosbox to just launch Eduke32 in Polymost when i feel like playing Duke 3d after playing Doom E1. Should be easy.

[banjiepixel]

3 hours ago, Arsinikk said:

People are asking why because they don't understand why you would want what you've asked for. There's a reason why most people don't use or want to use a DOS-like interface. If you want a DOS-like interface, just use DOSBOX to emulate DOS itself, it's as simple as that.

 

It is just the the ability to run DOS programs that I want, not the DOS command line user interface.

 

I have only minor experience from using DOSBox but from what I gather, simplest form what I want is that a source port could be used to launch specific .conf files with DOSBox. First step wouldn't even actually need to be DOSBox but simply turning a source port into something that would have ability to launch a external program.

 

3 hours ago, Arsinikk said:

"why" is actually a very important question to answer, especially for sourceport developers. They have created sourceports for a particular reason and/or to solve something that was lacking before making their own sourceport.

 

Unfortunately, if you want something that's super niche and is something you and only you want, you would have to make it yourself. Especially since what you've been asking for isn't what's in demand. Then again, how would we even know what you want, if you don't answer the most important question: why.

 

We are talking purely a potential personal project here, so "why" should be irrelevant as the project would fill purely my own personal need. Generally just something for me to do, exist as creative outlet and fitting excuse to find motivation to learn something new, To me, people asking "why" seems mainly like people sticking their noses in and acting like I would need their permission. And people being so focused "why" seem like they don't see value in just general experimentation without it being attempt to solve actual problem. 

 

Another issue seems to be the general lack of ambition from source port developers, many traditional things are deemed "good enough" and people do not push the envelope, atleast what comes user interfaces. It might not be seen as big priority but source ports do lag way behind official releases what comes to user interfaces. We are still relying so heavily on command line parameters and 3rd party launchers because they are "good enough". And in same way people have been suggesting to me that current solutions to what I want are "good enough" when I want to create something that goes beyond that.

 

3 hours ago, Arsinikk said:

Either way the reason most people have strayed away from DOS is because it is quite a bit of work to set up correctly, and if you aren't willing to put in the effort, frankly you shouldn't be dabbling in DOS at all imo.

 

i have no problem using DOS or command line stuff and I have even made my own .bat frontend for launching Doom stuff. I also love using terminal to launch Doom on Linux because it reminds me of my DOS days. But on Windows, command line stuff are just messy, less integrated to the overall user experience. There is no skill or effort issue, this is about making the packaging attractive to myself.

Edited October 23, 2023 by banjiepixel

[Kinsie]

So... a front-end, but with Doom style graphics like the little launcher that comes with Wolf3D on Steam nowadays?

 

[banjiepixel]

9 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

So... a front-end, but with Doom style graphics like the little launcher that comes with Wolf3D on Steam nowadays?

 

Not just Doom style graphics but literal Doom graphics. And yes, I want to make things harder for myself on purpose by using actual Doom source code as much as possible in a launcher.

[JustAthel]

31 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

It is just the the ability to run DOS programs that I want, not the DOS command line user interface.

 

But this is... just... the whole point behind DOSBox? 

 

32 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

We are talking purely a potential personal project here, so "why" should be irrelevant as the project would fill purely my own personal need. Generally just something for me to do, exist as creative outlet and fitting excuse to find motivation to learn something new, To me, people asking "why" seems mainly like people sticking their noses in and acting like I would need their permission. And people being so focused "why" seem like they don't see value in just general experimentation without it being attempt to solve actual problem. 

No, actually, we're just trying to understand why you're basically reinventing the wheel. 

 

5 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

And yes, I want to make things harder for myself on purpose by using actual Doom source code as much as possible in a launcher.

 

...why would you need actual doom source code for a launcher? Especially if it's launching other applications? It sounds to me like you're actually trying to make a GUI that runs on DOS, with actual Doom graphics to supplement it (a literal Doom Operating System, heh), but even still, this would not require the use of ANY source code whatsoever from the original game. Maybe it WOULD be a semi-cool idea, in all honesty, but it's definitely going to take a lot of work, both on the research end AND the actual coding end. Your first step would be to find what programming languages DOS uses, and cross-reference them with what's compatible with DOSBOX. From there, find out whatever tutorials you can, most likely at this point it's so outdated that everything you'll ever want to do and then some will be at your fingertips practically. Once you get a basic file system program going, you can decorate it with assets from Doom, pulling some graphics using Slade as you see fit. You could probably go a step further and devise some sort of "game-finding" algorithm in your program, so that it could search in a given directory.

 

That is, of course, if I'm understanding your desires right?

[Kinsie]

Out of interest, banjiepixel, what programming languages do you already know? Because if you're coming into this brand new, you should probably start with something smaller and less ambitious and work your way up - MS-DOS programming is pretty unforgiving compared to modern operating systems where a lot of things have been abstracted and made safer, and Doom's source code assumes a decent pre-existing understanding of C.

[Individualised]

OP I'm just gonna tell it how it is; you are not good at communicating what you want. A lot of your statements are contradictory.

 

To be clear; are you asking for a Doom source port with an embedded version of DOSBOX that can be accessed from the in-game menu?

[dasho]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

Another issue seems to be the general lack of ambition from source port developers, many traditional things are deemed "good enough" and people do not push the envelope, atleast what comes user interfaces.

 

Pushing the envelope with UI is what got us Metro.

[banjiepixel]

3 minutes ago, JustAthel said:

No, actually, we're just trying to understand why you're basically reinventing the wheel. 

 

And this information would benefit you and other people how exactly? Can't we all just assume that it is relevant to my interests and move on to the actual discussion?

 

9 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

MS-DOS programming is pretty unforgiving compared to modern operating systems where a lot of things have been abstracted and made safer, and Doom's source code assumes a decent pre-existing understanding of C.

 

I wouldn't need do any MS-DOS programming. DOS related functionality I need to reach my main goals are to use existing DOSBox features. I would need to do

relatively minor modification to DOSBox and most of the integration and modifications to make these two programs to work more closely together would be to source port. People seem to be struggling with understanding the role of DOSBox here when it is pretty simple, just something extra included for playing DOS games. And the point is to gain that understanding of C with something actually challenging to keep myself motivated.

 

5 minutes ago, Individualised said:

To be clear; are you asking for a Doom source port with an embedded version of DOSBOX that can be accessed from the in-game menu?

 

Not asking for, but yes, that is basically the concept I have in mind.

 

4 minutes ago, dasho said:

Pushing the envelope with UI is what got us Metro.

 

No, bad design with UI is what got us Metro. And another issue with Microsoft's operating system UI design has been half measures, you must not be so scared of forcing people to learn new things that you handicap good things in the new design. Gnome Shell also pushed the envelope with UI, better design and better results than Metro.

 

And Metro wasn't even that bad to actually use, it was just extremely messy.

[dasho]

17 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

No, bad design with UI is what got us Metro. And another issue with Microsoft's operating system UI design has been half measures, you must not be so scared of forcing people to learn new things that you handicap good things in the new design. Gnome Shell also pushed the envelope with UI, better design and better results than Metro.

 

If you think you can 'force' a user to learn anything, especially a new paradigm, you have a lot to unlearn.

 

Gnome Shell is, in fact, a great example. Ask yourself which Gnome Shell extensions are the most popular and I think you will understand this.

[Edward850]

18 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

I wouldn't need do any MS-DOS programming. DOS related functionality I need to reach my main goals are to use existing DOSBox features. I would need to do

relatively minor modification to DOSBox and most of the integration and modifications to make these two programs to work more closely together would be to source port. People seem to be struggling with understanding the role of DOSBox here when it is pretty simple, just something extra included for playing DOS games. And the point is to gain that understanding of C with something actually challenging to keep myself motivated.

Yeah no, this requires a lot more work then you seem to think. Abstracting a front end out of Doom in an emulated environment requires overriding Doom's own menu interfaces, which when done from a virtual machine (which DOSBox is) requires very in-depth understanding of Doom's memory and operational state, not to mention x86 machine code itself, to intercept those functions when run. You'll also need to learn how to force Doom into different states externally for managing saved games. Nothing about this is simple at all.

 

Like I said in the beginning, none of this is impossible, but you are in for probably one of the hardest things to do out of a Doom port, and you are trying to do it before you even know how to walk (so to speak). This is going to work out poorly.

[banjiepixel]

1 hour ago, dasho said:

 

If you think you can 'force' a user to learn anything, especially a new paradigm, you have a lot to unlearn.

 

Gnome Shell is, in fact, a great example. Ask yourself which Gnome Shell extensions are the most popular and I think you will understand this.

 

It is not about unlearning, it is about many people just being slower to adapt and big part of that is usually more of a choice.

 

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

Yeah no, this requires a lot more work then you seem to think. Abstracting a front end out of Doom in an emulated environment requires overriding Doom's own menu interfaces, which when done from a virtual machine (which DOSBox is) requires very in-depth understanding of Doom's memory and operational state, not to mention x86 machine code itself, to intercept those functions when run. You'll also need to learn how to force Doom into different states externally for managing saved games. Nothing about this is simple at all.

 

You do seem the be thinking about much deeper integration that what I actually have in mind. Maybe I am not using the right terms and that is causing misunderstanding. Only way I need the Doom enviroment and the virtual machine to interact with eachother is at very surface level, so it would be simpler things to do, with probably the most complicated thing being just directing DOSBox video and sound output to the Doom window and feeding input data from Doom engine to DOSBox. I don't care about there being some jank and hacks if it is making things I want possible. Doom and DOSBox are meant to be very isolated, to the point DOSBox being able to be it's own separate executable. DOSBox side would literally use native Doom code only for the launching and basic display, audio and input purposes, interactions very similar to current interactions between DOSBox and operating system running it.

 

2 hours ago, Edward850 said:

Like I said in the beginning, none of this is impossible, but you are in for probably one of the hardest things to do out of a Doom port, and you are trying to do it before you even know how to walk (so to speak). This is going to work out poorly.

 

What if it will work out poorly, so what? People are so concerned about the end result that they are missing how much the journey itself can actually matter. No matter how far I will end up with this, it will push me forward as a person in some way. As a software developer, your time is obviously too valueable for anything this unpractical from multiple viewpoints, so you wouldn't attempt it even if you would like the idea on paper. But I do have plenty of time to waste to attempting this and that time is probably even better used to attempting than to things I would use it otherwise.

[Blzut3]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

As a software developer, your time is obviously too valueable for anything this unpractical from multiple viewpoints

Believe me, software developers spend inordinate amounts of time on completely pointless things (see pretty much all retro computing/demo scene stuff).  However one thing we quickly learn is to try to understand what the problem being solved is since it's very often that people think things are simple that are really complicated and think that stuff that's actually really simple is really complicated.  Understanding the problem at hand will allow the opportunity to find the simpler solution.

 

If you want to build a rube goldberg machine anyway no one can stop you.  We're still going to be thoroughly confused as to why you're building it though.

[Edward850]

Blzut3 touches on a good point there that's worth expanding upon; It seems that you've created this thread with a conflicting purpose; you want to know the complexities of doing something, and when given the answer you either say we don't understand it or it's easier than we making it out to be. So then... why the thread if you're just going to disagree with the responses as the default action? We aren't here to stop you, go do your thing.

[Gez]

I want a car that's also a submarine and a supersonic VTOL aircraft and a space shuttle and also it has to be eco-friendly by using air as its sole source of fuel and it needs to be safe and reliable and cheap, like maybe $100 with no maintenance needed. No, I will not hear your arguments about why this is absurd, I'm just pushing my genius ideas out there.

[banjiepixel]

44 minutes ago, Blzut3 said:

However one thing we quickly learn is to try to understand what the problem being solved is since it's very often that people think things are simple that are really complicated and think that stuff that's actually really simple is really complicated.  Understanding the problem at hand will allow the opportunity to find the simpler solution.

 

There might be bit a confusion caused by there being different types of creative people. It would seem that more technical type creative people put alot of focus on solving problems in their creativity. I am however more of an artistic type of a creative person so I care more about creating something because I simply want that something to exist. It probably would be more accurate or atleast easier to think my goals as more of an art project. 

 

13 minutes ago, Blzut3 said:

We're still going to be thoroughly confused as to why you're building it though.

 

That is probably because my reasons are so highly personal and likely based on rather untypical way of thinking, so it simply just will not make any sense to others. And if I would be looking at project of someone else, I simply personally wouldn't even think about the question of why. It wouldn't really be my business and my natural reaction would be to just take the idea at face value.

 

5 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

Blzut3 touches on a good point there that's worth expanding upon; It seems that you've created this thread with a conflicting purpose; you want to know the complexities of doing something, and when given the answer you either say we don't understand it or it's easier than we making it out to be. So then... why the thread if you're just going to disagree with the responses as the default action? We aren't here to stop you, go do your thing.

 

There seems have been alot of misunderstanding happening. I do apologize if what you said is how it has looked like. Based on alot of responses, it would seem like I have failed at presenting my concept using a language that would be understood. Many people seem to have misunderstood it as things like DOSBox based source port or adding source port features to DOSBox emulated Doom.

 

And I am not disagreeing, I am simply questioning and presenting my understanding of issue to be corrected by someone who knows better so I could gain more understanding. The language I use do this is probably too "streamlined" so it is being taken as me not understanding depth and thinking that everything is simple. I am behaving in the way that is optimal for myself learning things, but atleast in some places it does clash with personalities and social behaviour of others, just like clearly has happened here.

 

I am meaning of no offence by being so skeptical and needing extra information to convince me. There probably could be some better way to respond to try to gain that needed extra information, but I am still trying to find it.

[Julia Nechaevskaya]

If you are seeking for knowledge/experience/self-realization in Doom programming, then no need to rush into such complicated concept at first place. Start from foundation basis, like hacking or experimenting with Chocolate Doom source code. Probably most easiest part and good starting point will be menu system.

 

And again, don't rush. Seven years ago even menu system was something like rocket science for me (kindly quoting @fabian here), but everything comes with patience, interest, motivation, perseverance and sometimes fanaticism. Even programming is a kind of creativity, where you can do things absolutely different way, but anyways, it's not the thing that can be learned only by ambitions, wish or snap of fingers.

[fabian]

6 hours ago, dasho said:

Gnome Shell is, in fact, a great example. Ask yourself which Gnome Shell extensions are the most popular and I think you will understand this.

 

Which ones do you mean? I haven't found a definite answer to this. 

[banjiepixel]

8 minutes ago, Julia Nechaevskaya said:

If you are seeking for knowledge/experience/self-realization in Doom programming, then no need to rush into such complicated concept at first place. Start from foundation basis, like hacking or experimenting with Chocolate Doom source code. Probably most easiest part and good starting point will be menu system.

 

I am not rushing into anything, everything I am saying is to happen in long term, take even decades if needed. I am going split things into smaller manageable goals once I find solid direction to my plans. I want to have a big vision to chase for motivation, I can always change direction later if I want. And Chocolate Doom menu system experimentation was already one of my first targets in the plan. I could probably do alot of other neat stuff with just the menu skills.

[Blzut3]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

Based on alot of responses, it would seem like I have failed at presenting my concept using a language that would be understood.

No, at this point it's pretty clear what you want.  Everyone just can't believe that's actually what you want.

[dasho]

46 minutes ago, fabian said:

 

Which ones do you mean? I haven't found a definite answer to this. 

Generally Application Menu, Taskbar re-creators, Places Menu, other things that essentially brought back more traditional paradigms.

 

I guess I could have pointed to the creation of Cinnamon as well.

[Redneckerz]

6 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

And this information would benefit you and other people how exactly? Can't we all just assume that it is relevant to my interests and move on to the actual discussion?

Why even state this when you have literal people attempting to make heads and tails of what appears again to be a extremely vague notion?

 

I am glad that you seem to be thinking on a higher plane of existence, but for us mortals here, it comes across as if you don't know what you want.

 

10 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

That is probably because my reasons are so highly personal and likely based on rather untypical way of thinking, so it simply just will not make any sense to others.

Then why make the thread to begin with? Right, you want to share your idea?

 

I have yet to reply to your PM because you did that after the previous thread got closed, but it looks like this is going down the same highway. You are conflictive in what you suggest, but when countered with an answer, you rebuke and state the exact opposite is your actual intention.

 

It reads as if you are unsure of it yourself and we are left by as stagehands trying to guide your idea forth.

 

11 minutes ago, Blzut3 said:

No, at this point it's pretty clear what you want.  Everyone just can't believe that's actually what you want.

I feel mostly the same about this. Because OP is using such abstract wording, it takes multiple rounds of clarification to arrive at a concise idea.