Getting Ventura Professional to run on vDos

[brucemsmall]

I have recently downloaded and installed vDos 2020.03.01. I have loaded old program files for Ventura Professional Publisher (approx 1988-1995) in the subdirectory VENTURA under C:\vDos.

When I call the Ventura initiating file (VPPROF.BAT) I get the following error message:


                                    illegal CPU opcode 63 at E000.002D

The VPPROF.BAT file is as follows:     DRVRMRGR VPPROF %1 /S=SDRGDI.VGA/M=32/A=13/E=256/X=C:/X=D:

The autoexac.bat file of vDos as as follows:     USE F: C:\vDos\VENTURA

                                                                    F:

                                                                    CALL VPPROF.BAT


Anyone have any idea about what I must modify and how, to get Ventura running under vDos?

Many thanks,
Bruce Small

[Jos]

vDos only supports basic VGA with a maximum resolution of 640x480. Especially for a graphical program like Ventura, DOSBox seems far more suitable with all its VGA+ display cards.

Since opcode 63 on its own isn’t illegal and its executed in the first EMS page, you could try what adding this line to config.txt will bring:
strictmem = on

But still, DOSBox should be more capable at displaying the Ventura graphics.

Jos