# Installing MS-Dos Fonts



## caeebe (Jun 18, 2003)

I use some MS-DOS software from the mid-90s to run my research equipment. I just upgraded to a new computer but the software no longer runs the same. The menus are now unreadable but despite being unreadable the functions are still performed the same.

I think that the problem is that the Font used in the menu is not on the new computer. I think the font I need is 13x8. My problem is that I don't know where to find this font or how to install it onto the new computer. Is there a special folder I need to put it into or a configuration file I need to ammend? I would also really appreciate it if someone could point me to place where I could find this font.

I am trying to run this program on several computers. One is running XP and I am using the ms-dos prompt. The others are running both windows 98 and Dos 6.?.


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## caeebe (Jun 18, 2003)

I have been searching for the answer to this problem through several channels. It seems that years ago standard DOS display fonts were hardwired into graphics cards. As the old DOS programs stopped being used the graphics cards companies stopped hardwiring in these fonts. Without these standard fonts the program instead displays corrupt text which is essentially gobbly-****. It seems that the fix is to contact the graphics card company and they should be able to fix the problem. 

I've done that but they haven't gotten back to me yet. I'll update the list if it works. Meanwhile, if anyone has a better fix please tell me. I need to do this for 3 different computers which all have different graphics cards and I would prefer an easier way.


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## brendandonhu (Jul 8, 2002)

Are you sure 13x8 is a font? Sounds like a DOS font size to me.


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## Cosmic (May 5, 2003)

H,mmm, you seem to indicate the problem is basically hardware related.

I tend to believe that would be true. On the older DOS Machines you could control fonts via software but it could be tricky. The program had to be written to do it and take care of any problems that popped up.

I have programs I have written that do that. There are utility type programs that allow you to select a particular font. Some of them even allow you to design your own fonts. In one program I had some very slick choices even a couple scripts. Fairly rare for them days.

The problems as I remember them are various operations cause you to lose the fonts and shift back to a default. Things like changing video modes, saving pages, certain software commands, maybe some mouse control too. In my case it didn't matter much because I had the source code and could just reload the desired font as part of the debugging procedure when I found the problem.

So you might be able to solve your problem via finding the proper font and loading it, but depending on how the program works, you might also lose it at certain points due to the program operation.

You can probably still find these type font programs for DOS by searching thru the various Shareware libraries. I could rummage back thru my dusty bins and see if I can locate exactly how I was doing it at the time. If I remember right each font was its own little .COM file and they might have been TSR. Somehow I could change them on the fly by the correct commands within the program. If I had a loss, I reprogrammed that point for a refresh.

So depending on your operation, you would need to find the proper font, a method to load it and not have any software event that would cause you to lose it, if you tried for a software solution. Probably is going to work best if it is a program you have the source code too and can modify as required. Failing that, you would just have to try and see what happens.

The better idea might be to think about how to get the right graphics card. Can you actually "downgrade" to an older card that does have the correct support; if fixing the newer card is not an option?

The only other solution I can think of is try to run your old DOS software under a DOS Shell program called TREEVIEW. It can and does fix many problems associated with running older DOS programs on far newer machines, many of those type problems do relate to video.

It can give you some control over things like memory, video and makes the program think it is back on an older DOS machine. You start TREEVIEW by clicking on it's icon, this will shift into a DOS prompt window with TREEVIEW running as a supervisor program and then start the older program under TREEVIEW. Is the only way I run older DOS programs on newer Windows based machines, plus you can do so many other things with it as well in terms of dianogistics and moving, manipulating files around etc. Plus you don't have to remember most of the DOS commands, you operate directly via a menu system for most things.

In my case I have it set up on a ZIP drive where I can make my newer Win98 machine be an older DOS 6.2 machine and everything operates just about like it did in the old days. (Still some things to know about, do's and don'ts). You can still get into trouble doing this if you are very foolish and do dumb things. I highly recommend doing the operations on an isolated drive like a ZIP drive.

Can send you a copy, if you can't locate one in the various Shareware libraries.


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