[Papyrus-L] f/u re: Papyrus on Windows 7 (64-bit).

[Thomas Gill]

I wanted to follow-up on the wonderful suggestions below from John Kiernan.
I have a new laptop with Windows 7 and am trying to salvage Papyrus for the
next few years.  I have installed DOSBox, but would like to ask whether more
specifics are available about the suggestions below.

 

For example, what is meant by "have to mount drive letters ."?  

 

Second, how could I find and edit the configuration file?

 

Are additional details/documentation available about either/both of these
issues.

 

Greatly appreciated.

 

Tom Gill

 

 

****************************************************

Thomas M. Gill, M.D.

Humana Foundation Professor of Geriatric Medicine

Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology & Investigative Medicine

Director, Center on Disability and Disabling Disorders 

Yale University School of Medicine

Dorothy Adler Geriatric Assessment Center

20 York Street

New Haven, CT 06510

Phone: (203) 688-9423   Fax: (203) 688-4209

Email: thomas.gill at yale.edu

****************************************************

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papyrus on Windows 7 (64-bit).

It can be done, using a free (public domain) program called DOSBox. The
current version (0.74) of DOSBox can be downloaded from
http://www.dosbox.com/  (Click on "Downloads" at the top of the page, and
follow the links). The program is easy to install, and it brings up a window
that behaves like a DOS Version 5, logged in to Drive "Z:". 

 

To run Papyrus, you have to "mount" drive letters to represent the locations
of the directories containing your Papyrus program and data files. (I use P:
to represent C:\REFS\PAPYRUS\ and Q: for C:\REFS\PAPREF\ respectively.) The
Alt+Enter key combination can be used to toggle between the rather small
DOSBox window and full screen, if you like things big. After quitting
Papyrus, you are back at DOSBox's command prompt. You can close DOSBox by
entering the command EXIT or (Windows-wise) by clicking the X at the top
right corner. It would be possible to abandon DOSBox by clicking the X in
the middle of a Papyrus session. I haven't tried this! I suspect that there
would be no prompt to save changes.

 

With a little study of the DOSBox documentation, it's possible to find and
edit a configuration file that will do the mounting and start the program. I
now have the old familiar Papyrus icon on the Windows 7 desktop, and
everything works well. Edited and changed files are saved to my
C:\REFS\PAPREF directory. I can back up all the .BIB files to a memory stick
and copy them to another computer. 

The DOSBox program appears to be aimed at games enthusiasts; it has many
features and options that aren't needed for Papyrus.

 

DOSBox can also accommodate many other DOS programs and utilities, including
some very useful ones that won't otherwise work in Vista or Win 7. From a
desktop icon, I can now call up a utilities window, type in MW NaIO3 and see
the molecular weight of sodium iodide (149.894).  I can type PEP
ala-tyr-gly-trp and get the MW of the peptide and an estimate of its pI. I
haven't yet tried larger DOS applications such as WordStar.

 

DOSBox may signal a few more years of useful life for Papyrus. I hope so.

 

Sadly, DOSBox will not run 16-bit graphics applications that need Win95/98
in addition to DOS. The WIMP95 program for drawing chemical structures is
one of these. It worked up to and including XP and Vista.  

 

I thank Rex Conn of http://jpsoft.com <http://jpsoft.com/>  (4DOS, 4NT,
TakeCommand etc) for telling me about DOSBox. 

 

John Kiernan

Anatomy, UWO

London, Canada

 

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