Try changing machine= in dosbox.conf

Try these one by one:
hercules, cga, tandy, pcjr, ega, vgaonly,

[MOVED]

DosFreak wrote:

Try changing machine= in dosbox.conf

Try these one by one:
hercules, cga, tandy, pcjr, ega, vgaonly,

I have tried each one of these, with all the same results (other than hercules which displays nothing at all but produces sound). Any other suggestions?

It's a bug in the DOS conversion of the game that isn't present in the original booter. When you press enter at an empty command prompt, it switches between full-screen text and mixed graphics/text. Just press space or some key other than enter to clear the intro screen. You can always press enter to toggle between the views, regardless. The bug is caused by the conversion seeing that a key has been pressed during the intro, but not actually reading the key, so it gets read later.

EDIT: This 1986 game supports a serial mouse, but not the PS/2-style mouse that DOSBox emulates. I think there is a way to use directserial and a real serial mouse, but not sure if it will work.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

It's a bug in the DOS conversion of the game that isn't present in the original booter. When you press enter at an empty command prompt, it switches between full-screen text and mixed graphics/text. Just press space or some key other than enter to clear the intro screen. You can always press enter to toggle between the views, regardless. The bug is caused by the conversion seeing that a key has been pressed during the intro, but not actually reading the key, so it gets read later.

EDIT: This 1986 game supports a serial mouse, but not the PS/2-style mouse that DOSBox emulates. I think there is a way to use directserial and a real serial mouse, but not sure if it will work.

WOW That is indeed the problem! Can't believe that all along it was something so simple.

I've now noticed the mouse problems as well. I don't believe I still own my old serial mouse, I really hope there is another solution. But the graphics really were the main thing at least I can play the game now 😁

ripsaw8080 wrote:

This 1986 game supports a serial mouse, but not the PS/2-style mouse that DOSBox emulates. I think there is a way to use directserial and a real serial mouse, but not sure if it will work.

It works. You have to connect serial mouse to your com after windows has completely booted, so that it won't install drivers for this mouse.

[serial]
serial1=directserial realport:COM1 irq:4

By the way - serial mouse is very delayed in dosbox in every game/program.

robertmo wrote:

It works. You have to connect serial mouse to your com after windows has completely booted, so that it won't install drivers for […]
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ripsaw8080 wrote:

This 1986 game supports a serial mouse, but not the PS/2-style mouse that DOSBox emulates. I think there is a way to use directserial and a real serial mouse, but not sure if it will work.

It works. You have to connect serial mouse to your com after windows has completely booted, so that it won't install drivers for this mouse.

[serial]
serial1=directserial realport:COM1 irq:4

By the way - serial mouse is very delayed in dosbox in every game/program.

All I did was set the windows drivers to disable in device manager (your windows mouse won't work after that)
Also run your serial mouse driver in dosbox.config or your dosbax autoexec.bat. Then your serial mouse should work in dosbox.
I still didn't see any improvement in the mouse response though.

OT but this game was released originally for the Apple. There are also C64 and Amiga versions.

Might be worth checking them out? Maybe one of the other versions is superior?

So it's not possible to emulate a serial mouse in DOSBOX - you have to use a real serial mouse? 😲