Psp dosbox
PSP DOSBOX
The psp is a handheld device designed by Sony and released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in the PAL region on September 1, 2005. When it was released in japan, running firmware version 1.00, the device wasn't "locked down". IE it would run unsigned code. Due to this, and various other flaws found the the PSP's system OS, the homebrew community has been quite strong. This has led to many opensource projects being started aimed at the PSP. There has also been a few ports as well, from Ffmpeg to our beloved Dosbox.
Unfortunately, as the PSP successor the Vita has been released, this "scene" has dwindled down quite a bit. As such the port of Dosbox is quite old. However, it still runs nicely on every PSP version, as well as the PSP emu on the Vita, if you can run homebrew on your vita.
Using PSPDosBox
Bear in mind that there are a few limitations for using Dosbox on the PSP. The PSP has a limited amount of ram and cpu speed. You will not be able to play everything dosbox can, but there are still quite a few things you can play. The standard PSP has a 333mhz max cpu, and 32mb ram, the slim and go has a 333mhz cpu and 64mb ram, and the vita's emu speed, while not exactly known, is about a 60% faster and 32mb ram. Thus, depending on which model you are using, the speed you will get will vary.
To get it installed is quite simple. First you need a copy of the program, which you can find here: [1]. You can also find a very good pdf there under the FAQ, as well as a short compatibility list. Once you have the files extraced you just copy over your PSPDosbox folder to /psp/game/, or where ever you have your homebrew. Go to Dosbox on your PSP, and click it and you are running DOS on your PSP.
However, runing DOS by itself is no fun, you need some programs and games. PSPDosbox has it’s conf file in the Dosbox folder. By default ms0:/psp/game/dosbox as C. However, if you want you can edit that to anywhere you want. Once you have that set up how you like it, copy over your dos programs to said folder.
It is also advisable to create a bat file to launch your program, as the psp’s buttons are quite limited, and it can be a chore to use it without first setting your keys. To set the keys you use “INPUTMAP PSPKEY keyboard key “. So if you were to, say, map the up key on your psp to the up on the keyboard you would have “INPUTMAP up up”. You can set this up to anything you like, but the default settings are:
INPUTMAP up up
INPUTMAP right right
INPUTMAP down down
INPUTMAP left left
INPUTMAP triangle d
INPUTMAP square lshift
INPUTMAP cross lctrl
INPUTMAP circle lalt
Important bits
Windows 3.11 can not be installed on the psp. A maximum of 10 files can be open at the same time, and the windows install needs many more. As such the best way to get windows 3.11 on your psp would be to load up the install in dosbox on your computer, install it, and then copy over the windows folder. Windows 95 and 98 also "can" be done this way, but they are extremely slow, not that Win 3.11 isn't.
You can change the sensitivity of your nub by editing the sensitivity= settings in your dosbox.conf
When typing out locations in your dosbox.conf always use a forward slash "/" PSPDosbox doesn't rec a backslash "\" So you would do ms0:/psp/game/dosbox and NOT ms0:\psp\game\dosbox
You can change the frameskip in your dosbox.conf by searching for "frameskip=". If you set it too high, you will get graphical errors, but it could give you that last push to let a game be playable.
If you add keyhint=true to your dosbox.conf it will show the list of possible keyboard button whenever you a combo key.
You can press Left trigger + Right trigger + Select + Dpad Down to switch between your keypad settings, and the keyboard entry method.
You can press Left trigger + Right trigger + Start + Dpad Down to switch between your keypad settings and joystick mode.
LINKS
For help in mounting folders as a HD, floppies, and cd's check out MOUNT
For help in mounting images as a HD, floppies, or CD's check out IMGMOUNT
