Running APL*PLUS/PC on Windows 10 and 11

Running APL*Plus/PC on Windows 10 and 11

There are problaly not many people who, like myself, are still keeping their good old APL*Plus/PC from STSC, and who might also want to run it on Windows 10 or 11. However, if you are one of those few people, here is some useful information about how to do it.

As APL*Plus/PC is a DOS application and Windows 10 and 11 do not have a built-in DOS environment, you will need to install a DOS emulator, such as DOSBox, vDosPlus or DOSBox-X. All these DOS emulators will run most DOS programs as they would on a dedicated DOS PC.

DOSBox has been around for a number of years and you may already be familiar with it. vDosPlus and DOSBox-X are both newer players in this field, but definitely worth considering as an alternative to DOSBox. DOSBox uses a fixed bitmap font that really makes its window look like an old fashioned DOS screen, whereas vDosPlus and DOSBox-X both use scalable True Type fonts that integrate very niclely with a modern Windows environment. In the two pictures below you can see how each DOS emulator displays the 256 APL characters in APL*Plus/PC's atomic vector (QuadAV). In both cases the emulator's default window size has been used.

vDosPlus and DOSBox-X use a special True Type font called APLPlusPC.TTF. It is a modified version of Adrian Smith's APL385 font (with 8 missing box drawing characters added) that exactly matches APL*PLUS/PC's atomic vector.

DOSBox

vDosPlus / DOSBox-X

No matter which DOS emulator you are using, you will need to know where the APL characters are located on the keyboard. In case you don't remember any more, you can see the original APL*Plus/PC keyboard layout in this picture.

Using DOSBox

Using DOSBox for APL*Plus/PC is actually quite straightforward. All you need is a way to generate the APL characters. For this purpose you can use the program APLFONT. To get help about using the program, type "APLFONT /?" (without the quotes, of course).

As you can see in the picture above, DOSBox's default window is rather small. If you are not satisfied with that, you can switch to full screen mode (and back again) by pressing Alt+Enter. You can also customize the window size (plus some other options) in the configuration file "dosbox-0.74.conf". It can be found in the folder "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\DOSBox" or via "Apps => DOSBox-0.74 => DOSBox 0.74 Options"

Using vDosPlus

With vDosPlus things get a little more complicated, but the result is also more rewarding. Here is what you have to do:

Download the APLPlusPC True Type font to your VDosPlus directory.
Set "TITLE = vDosPlus - APL" in the file CONFIG.TXT (optional)
Set "FONT = APLPlusPC" in CONFIG.TXT
Set "KEYMODE = 1" in CONFIG.TXT
Mount (USE) a drive in the file AUTOEXEC.TXT
Set a path in AUTOEXEC.TXT

See file README.TXT for more information about how to use vDosPlus.

Using DOSBox-X

If you prefer to use DOSBox-X, you will have to:

Download the APLPlusPC True Type font to your DOSBox-X directory.
Set "titlebar = DOSBox-X APL" in the file dosbox-x.conf (optional)
Set "ttf.font = APLPlusPC" in dosbox-x.conf
Set a path and country in dosbox-x.conf
Mount a drive in the [autoexec] section of dosbox-x.conf
Insert the line "KEYB US 437" in the [autoexec] section of dosbox-x.conf (only needed if a US keyboard is not your default keyboard)

See file README.txt for more information about how to use DOSBox-X.

Svend Erik Baarsby
Pileurtvej 4, Kragehave
DK-2630 Taastrup
DENMARK

Tel. +45 46 56 00 11
Mobile: +45 40 98 73 85

This page was last updated 2024-03-17 11:54 CET