Subj : Tradewars under linux
To   : ALL
From : Dumas Walker
Date : Sat Sep 23 2017 07:48 am

For months now, I have been struggling with getting Tradewars working again
under linux.  It was working but, sometime back in June, the EXTERN program
began crashing my DOS maintenance BAT.  By "crashing," I mean it was
closing the dosemu window entirely, without a visible error message.

I tried running EXTERN under dosbox, as well as BIGBANG, and get the
following error:

File Error (1) - (filename).DAT : Invalid Function

filename = the name of the DAT file that the programs are presumably
attempting to access at that moment (it varies, depending on the program
and function).

I thought that upgrading to the latest version of debian caused this, as
that version of dosemu did cause other issues with other programs.  I
downgraded dosemu to the previous working version and, although all the
other BBS issues went away, the TW issue is still happening.

I do not remember doing anything special to the dosemu settings to get this
running... did any of you all that have tradewars working?

Some other things I tried... I went back to the OS/2 box I migrated the BBS
from, and the EXTERN program runs fine there.  I copied all of those files -
DAT, EXE, and the whole directory structure - from the OS/2 box to the
linux box and the problem immediately returned, as in first time I ran
EXTERN.

As stated, I tried BIGBANG-ing the universe over again, and that program
crashes, too.  I have NOT yet tried a fresh install... I need to locate my
registration info before I do that.

I even tried copying a fresh-from-OS/2-install copy over to a DOS-formatted
device (thinking maybe I was running into an upper/lower case issue),
mounting that device to linux, and running TW from there.  Same issue.

Tradewars was the one door I liked playing myself, so I would like to get
it running again.  Thanks for any assistance.

Mike

P.S.  FWIW, I am running TW under a DOS BBS that is also running in dosemu,
the same one it ran under when it was on the OS/2 box, and not under SBBS or
Mystic.  However, any input may still be relevant.  :)

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