the iDOS app has found it's way back into the app store, this time without the ability to directly open an .exe file. But, no matter. There's an easy work around discussed at touch arcade that involves the use of iPhone Explorer to load the games onto the iPod/iPhone/iPad instead of iTunes.

So i decided to give this a try. I navigated over to http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/ and looked for something I recognized. First game? The Black Cauldron. I remember this game well. I died a lot climbing up the castle wall incorrectly, getting caught in the castle, or in general not doing the right thing. I dont know that I ever beat this game. I'm not exactly sure how old I was when I even got it. I was six when this came out but I dont know if we got it right away. 

Anyway, I digress. I downloaded the game and got it working this way. Just change the bold text to whatever your folder/file name is:
  1. Install iPhone Explorer
  2. Plug in iPod/iPhone; expand App list & navigate to the iDOS app folder (make sure it's not syncing with iTunes)
  3. Drag and drop zip file to the "Documents" folder
  4. Start up iDOS on iPod/iPhone/iPad; hit C:\ icon at the bottom
  5. Type cd games
  6. Type mkdir cauldron
  7. Type cd cauldron
  8. Type upzip cauldron.zip
  9. Type BC.com *NOTE: the .com is similar to an executable file (.exe) and what is used to launch this particular game. Your program will probably be yourprogramname.exe


Here's a list of some DOS commands if you're not sure where you are or need a refresher. 

As for The Black Cauldron - so far it plays fine. You have the option to use a joystick or not (I opt for joystick! didn't have the first time I played this game). One thing that is lacking is the ability to type commands. You can get your commands from the drop down menu in the game, but I was used to typing commands (for example, "look") so it took me a minute. I'd honestly rather play the game on a computer with a full blown keyboard (and the ability to type commands for this particular game) but It's also pretty awesome that I can listen to that cheesy music and run around feeding Hen Wen again.

There's more info at the iDOS official forums and in the Touch Arcade forums where some more enthusiastic individuals appear to have gotten Windows 95 running (on their iPads I believe) as well as a host of other games.

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