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Some time ago I liked to play Little Big Adventure (LBA und LBA2) on DOS: It's a nice and amusing game.  Recently I detected both CDs in my shelf and thought it would be great to play these games again.

 

Little Big Adventure 2 cover2I don't have a DOS diskette/CD. Otherwise I would have installed the games in a VMware image. I did some research in the net and found out there exists a DOS emulator called DOSBox. It's running on Linux and Windows7. Unfortunately I don't have any CD drive on my desktop system and I have to be able to use an ISO image of the CD.  To create this image I used a labtop running Linux which has a CD drive.

LBA is setup quite fast when the ISO image was created. To get LBA2 to start successfully there are some rules to follow to create the ISO.

The instructions to create the ISOs is for Linux and has to be done on Windows with different tools I don't know. I suggest to use LInux for this. DOSBox command sequences so start the games are simliar if the path names are updated accordingly. I was able to run LBA and LBA2 on a Windows7 system by using the ISO images created on Linux. DOSBox commands to start the games on Windows7 are located at the end of the article.

 

Create ISOs on Linux

 

LBA 

Just insert the CD into the CD drive and execute

dd if=/dev/cdrom of=LBA.iso bs=1MB

to create the LBA.iso.

 

LBA2

If you copy the LBA2 CD the same way for LBA you will get a message, to insert the CD even it's mounted  in DOSBox. That's because the LBA2 CD is a mixed mode CD and dd will not copy all files correctly. Therefore you have to use some Linux tools (apt-get install cdrdao) to create a cue file which contains all the CD data. Execute

cdrdao read-cd --read-raw --datafile LBA2.bin --driver generic-mmc:0x20000 --device /dev/cdrom LBA2.toc
toc2cue LBA2.toc LBA2.cue

and you will get a LBA2.cue, LAB2bin and LBA2.toc.

 

Install DOSBox and provide directories and files

Now DOSBox has to be installed.

sudo apt-get install dosbox

Create following directories:

1)  ~/LBA for the ISO images of LBA and LBA2

2) ~/LBA/lba for LBA

3)  ~/LBA/lba2 for LBA2

and copy LBA.iso, LBA2.cue, LBA2.toc and LBA2.bin in ~/LBA

 

Install and start LBA and LBA2

Both games have to be installed with DOSBox. Just execute

dosbox -c "imgmount d ~/LBA/LBA.iso -t iso" -c "mount c ~/LBA/lba" -c "c:" -c "cd lba" -c "setup" -c"exit"

rsp

dosbox -c "imgmount d ~/LBA/LBA2.cue -t iso" -c "mount c ~/LBA/lba2" -c "c:" -c "cd lba2" -c "install" -c "exit"

For LBA the sound files (Directory VOX) have to be copied manually form the ISO into ~/LBA/lba/LBA. Otherwise teh game will hang when it tries to load the sound files. next configure Soundblaster Pro 1 and 220, 7 and 1. LBA2 has a sound autodiscovery.

Finally a script should be created to start the game

#!/bin/bash
dosbox -c "imgmount d ~/LBA/LBA.iso -t iso" -c "mount c ~/LBA/lba" -c "c:" -c "cd lba" -c "lba" -c "exit"

rsp

#!/bin/bash
dosbox -c "imgmount d ~/LBA/LBA2.cue -t iso" -c "mount c ~/LBA/lba2" -c "c:" -c "cd lba2" -c "lba2" -c "exit"

 

DOSBox commands for Windows7

You can use the ISOs created on LInux also for Windows7.

 

Assumptions: Following directories exist:

1) c:\LBA for ISO images of LBA and LBA2

2) c:\LBA\lba for LBA

3) c:\LBA\lba2 for LBA2

and LBA.iso,  LBA2.cue, LBA2.toc und LBA2.bin are available in  c:\LBA.

LBA

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -c "imgmount d c:\LBA\lba.iso -t iso" -c "mount c c:\lba\lba" -c "c:" -c "cd lba" -c "lba" -c "exit"

LBA2

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -c "imgmount d -t iso c:\LBA\lba2.cue" -c "mount c c:\lba\lba2" -c "c:" -c "cd lba2" -c "lba2"

 

Links

DOSBox - DOS emulator for the games

Magicball Network - LBA1/LBA2 Dosbox Guide - Instructions ahow to start LBA1 and LBA2 in DOSBox

Magicball Network - LBA2 Problem in DOSBox - Posting in forum how to mount LBA2 CD successfully

Linux goesZen - Instructions how to create for a mixed mode CD a cue file and how to mount it

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