So I'm at my local thrift store. Mixed in with the WHAM cassette singles and Toto cd's I find Jazz Jackrabbit Episodes 2,3, and 4 on cd-rom for MS-DOS.

I also got a USB gamepad, both totaling $1.50. So I'm pretty psyched... ready to buckle in for a retro-gaming flashback from the early 90's.

I knew the likelyhood of it actually working on my laptop with XP loaded was pretty slim, and it doesn't really surprise me that it doesn't work. The DOS prompt lets me install and configure the game, but I cannot play the game. It says "Runtime error 200". If there are any computer wizards out there that have any possible solutions (Besides buying a 1992 Packard Bell to play the game on), could you let me know, so that my super cheap retro gaming fantasy might become a reality?

I appreciate any thought or time you may spend in trying to help me solve my problem.

DOSBox? It's a program that pretty decently emulates DOS environment so you can play older stuff. I think it even emulates the old calls for sound to Windows so you have sound (i.e. Game is coded with Gravis Ultrasound support and you have a JimmyJack Bob built in sound card? No problem, it'll trap the Gravis requests and tell Windows to play this here sound).

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net

Wow, man. Thanks. I'm going to try it out when I get home this evening.

I have a good feeling about this!

Yes, Windows NT, 2000, XP, and Vista do not have DOS

you will need to either get DOSbox, FreeDOS, etc. or install MS Virtual PC 2004SP1 and install DOS in that. And even then, you won't get sound or USB, as I dunno of VPC supports DOS sound, but it doesn't support USB.

AFAIK, They do have DOS, but not bootable. You'll need a boot disk to run DOS. You can only run DOS emulation through Windows NT and upwards.

When I game retro, I use Dosbox. It's been very helpful. Use "Bitdefender" frontend. (I think that's what it's called.) Nice and easy.

Peace,
JT

or patch the exes with a error 200 fix.
but, even if you get them working in xp or higher,
those old programs won't see the PCI chipset sound card.
I have One Must Fall and it won't work on any OS higher than
Win Me. I loved Jazz, and Halloween Harry and Hocus Pocus and was crushed when they didn't work on a modern Os. so now I need a 15.00 pc to run my 50.00 of games I own.

Let me know how this works out since Jazz Jackrabbit is such a great game

OK, I've actually yet to download it, because I've been to busy to screw with it. I'll post it up here when I do though. I'm looking forward to playing it.