DOSBox and Vintage Computer Games
January 8th, 2010My wife was looking for something to help the boys’ speed with math facts, and remembered an old game they used to have on their computer called Funnels and Buckets. I hunted for it online, and found that there are quite a few sites that stock old abandonware. Most of these games have to be run inside a Dos emulator such as DOSBox. I installed DOSBox and read the tutorial, and got the game to work. Every time you start the game, you have to mount the folder it is in as a virtual drive via the DOS command line. Then you type in the name of the game, hit alt+enter, and in a flash you go from Windows Vista Ultimate to 1980s-era DOS. Cool!
The nice thing about games like Funnels is that they are very simple and just give children a little incentive to spout out math facts quickly. Homeschoolers don’t have competition at flash cards, so things like this are needed to inspire them!
Mike,
I am impressed. I tried and TRIED to get Funnels and Buckets working for us but just don’t have a clue how to rig it like you did. It’s a wonderful way to practice but for now we are slugging away at flashcards. The next time you visit, I’ll put you to work.
Jolynn
It’s a pain in the neck. I have an index card full of instructions for Michelle on how to start and run the game.