DOSPAD - DOSBox for iPad/iPhone

~NEW~ DosPad beta 1.9 is available for testing on iPhone 3GS or above now!

Install requirements: Jailbreak iPad, with Cydia installed.

Installation: a) Start cydia; b) goto manage->Sources; c) Add the following source.

http://www.litchie.net/cydia

DosPad Beta is recommended.

Some facts that your may want to know:

• Based on DOSBOX 0.74; Kudos to DOSBOX team for making this possible!
• COPY command can copy a hyper-linked file. For example,

  c:\> copy www.dosgamesarchive.com/files/mario.zip

• A bullt-in UNZIP command can unzip the files you just downloaded. NOTE: The zip file name should either be all upper case or all lower case.

  c:\> unzip mario.zip

• Automatically mount /var/mobile/Documents as disk C. So if you know how to SSH to your iPad, you probably can transfer a large set of files inside this directory.

Latest changes

DosPad Beta 1.9

• Performance improvement in rendering.
• Virtual Keyboard Improvement.
• Mouse speed customizable now.
• Show cycles and frameskip when you adjust them with CTRL-F11/CTRL-F12/CTRL-F7/CTRL-F8.

Previous Versions

• Add options in iPad.
• Add fullscreen keypad to iPad version, like on iPhone you can customize it.
• Add force aspect ratio 4:3 in options. You should never use aspect=true in dospad.cfg. It is slower and unstable for dospad.
• Add following line in dospad.cfg. Now 320x200 mode performs even faster than before.

  [render]
  # we are using faster scale outside dosbox
  scaler=none
  

• Now double tap on wood texture doesn't trigger fullscreen toggle. Because it often happens accidentally, and I find it quit annoying.

Mouse interface is totally redesigned. You must be brave enough to try out this version, or wait for a more stable version. This version is for collecting feedbacks. Mouse behavior is defined below:

• No mouse left area and right area now. Tap anywhere indicates a mouse left click; Tap anywhere while another finger is down indicates a mouse right click;
• Double tap on anywhere indicates a double click. For iPad, Double tap on the right bottom corner toggles fullscreen.
• Hold down a finger for more than 0.8 seconds will turn into a mouse left hold down event. A hold indicator should show up at your finger tip. This is designed for dragging windows around or playing solitaire while you're in win3.1.
• New mouse right button hold down. Similar to left button hold down. But prior to holding the finger, you need to put another finger on screen first. Be quick, otherwise the first finger will turn into left button hold.

As a new user, you may accidentally issue a mouse hold while you really want to do a right click. My suggestion is that tap quickly after you put one finger on.

Troubleshooting

Please make sure your game can run in desktop dosbox first!

• If you have error during installation, try to remove the previous version before installing update version.
• If dospad doesn't show up after install, you may need to reboot your device.
• If you can't launch games or game can't be saved, please check the permission of game files, and make sure dospad has write permission to them. You can use iFile from Cydia to apply permission change to a folder recursively. (by DA Dzi)

Todo

• UI Improvement. Give the screen a very nice border on ipad and the keys nicer look.
• Performance. Performance.
• External keyboard.
• Refactor source code, and make it available on google code.

About Donation

If you really love this app, please consider donate to dospad's further development. Work on dospad has been a great pleasure for me, however, as an independent developer, I have no regular income to pay for my food and rent. That's why I will highly appreciate your support.

External Links

I understand new users may have trouble setting up DosPad, especially since I only provide english documentation here. If you have a webpage or discussion thread about how to use DosPad, please let me know so I can add a link here.

• DOSPAD has its forum now! Thanks to Mike Burlingame for setting it up. This is a better place to exchange ideas and have discussions in more organized way.
• More screenshots at dospad@flickr .