Development tools
- DJGPP - DJ Delorie's complete 32-bit C/C++ development environment for Intel 80386. Used for Quake.
History
- The Life of MS-DOS by Brendan Byers - History of the DOS family including CP/M, Q-DOS/86-DOS, MS-DOS and PC-DOS. Article also includes a diagram of the timeline and family tree of DOS
operating systems.
Compiling
General
- The Artevida Game Programming Tutorials - Kevin Matz's almost book-length treatment of DOS system programming and VGA programming fundamentals using C/C++ and 80x86 assembly. Unfortunately it is incomplete and was abandoned since 2001.
- PC Game Programmer's Encyclopedia - Collection of guides covering assembly, sound (Sound Blaster, Gravis UltraSound, PC Speaker, GameBlaster, Adlib), input, memory (EMS, XMS, DMA Transfers), PIT, VGA, SVGA, algorithms and file formats.
- The Art of Demomaking by flipcode - Series from 1999 that introduces to graphics programming under DOS. The home site contains other late 90s/early 2000s game programming articles as well.
DOS API
- dos.h header documentation by Digital Mars Part 1 Part 2 - API documentation of functions for interfacing with the DOS operating system itself.
Video
- Values for standard video mode - List of all known video modes including BIOS interrupt numbers, text/pixel resolution, number of colors and video memory addresses.
Video / CGA
Video / VGA
- VGA Hardware - OSDev wiki - Hardware guide for VGA cards that is also relevant for modern graphics cards including NVidia and ATI.
Video / SVGA
Sound / PC Speaker
Sound / AdLib/OPL2
Sound / Sound Blaster/OPL3
Other / Sound Blaster/OPL3
- Table of DOSBox cyclecounts according to processor types - A table for setting the appropriate DOSBox cycle count according to CPU types (IBM XT 88, 286, 386, 486, Pentium I, Pentium II). Comes handy when you are developing a DOS game and want to simulate the environment where you intend to execute it.
Free / Sound Blaster/OPL3
Paid / Sound Blaster/OPL3
- Tricks of the Game-Programming Gurus - by Andre Lamothe, John Ratcliff and Denise Tyler - Comprehensive DOS game development book about starting out. Topics include keyboard, mouse- and joystick input handling, creating 2D and 3D VGA graphics, raycaster rendering, sound and music, game algorithms, Interrupt Service Routines (ISR), timers, artificial intelligence, networked multiplayer through serial port and null-modem cable, tooling, parallax scrolling and optimization techniques.
Videos / Sound Blaster/OPL3
Open source DOS libraries / Sound Blaster/OPL3
- LoveDOS (⭐693) - A framework for making 2D DOS games in Lua. API based on a subset of the LÖVE API.
- DOS-VGA-Game (⭐13) - Marco A. Marrero's DOS VGA/hardware library implemented in assembly and Turbo Pascal.
Open source DOS games / Homebrew games with source code
- DOS Defender (⭐138) - Christopher Wellons's x86 real mode DOS Asteroids clone created as an entry for Lundum Dare #31.
- Dungeons of Noudar (⭐57) - First-person 2.5D dungeon-crawler on protected mode. Written in C++, includes software rendering, fixed point math, test coverage and sound (PC speaker, Adlib, OPL2LPT).
- Emeritus Pong - Pong clone for DOS, Windows and Linux. Uses PC speaker for sound on DOS.
- Floppy Bird (⭐933) - Flappy Bird clone written in 16 bit assembly. Not a DOS program, but a PC-Booter application instead (although it's also possible to build a COM executable for DOS).
- George M. Tzoumas's collection of MS-DOS games and utilities - Turbo Pascal with few games in C and C++. Games include Nibbles, Connect Four, Ms Pacman clone and two arcade/platform games. One of them (ra2) was written using Allegro. Utilities are all written in Turbo Pascal, these include game system routines, file and disk utilities and terminate-and-stay-resident programs (TSR).
- Gridfighter 3D - '80s style arcade shooter written in Quickbasic. Also the very first known DOS game that supports Oculus Rift VR headset.
- Hangman - Hangman clone written in Basic. Runs on at least 80286 processors and uses EGA graphics.
- Magenta's Maze - 3D maze game using CGA graphics with algebra as theme.
- NetHack (⭐3.4k) - Descendant of the original NetHack rougelike game first released in 1987 available on multiple platforms.
- Piskworks (⭐8) - Gomoku clone written in C. Works on DOS, ZX Spectrum, ZX81, ZX80, APPLE1, AS400 and Windows.
- Ptakovina (⭐20) - Tetris clone written in C. Runs on DOS, Unix/Linux, ZX Spectrum and Windows.
- sudoku86 - Sudoku clone written in C. Runs on 8086/8088 CPU, uses CGA, MCGA or VGA graphics and uses a mouse.
- Tetris - Tetris clone written in assembly.
- x86 pong (⭐10) - Text-mode Pong clone written in C. Runs as PC-Booter game and under DOS.
- zmiy - Text-mode Snake clone written in C. Runs on 8086 DOS.
Open source DOS games / Freeware games with source code
- Cyberdogs - Top-down 2D shooter playing as a mercenary to earn money. Written in Turbo Pascal. Supports two player mode.
- Source code download link
- C-Dogs - Sequel to the original Cyberdogs. Ronny Wester, the original creator no longer maintains the website for the original C-Dogs, but multiple ports exists, including cdogs-sdl.
Open source DOS games / Commercial games with published source code
- Abuse - Sci-fi side-scrolling platform game. Regarded as an innovative cult classic by most people. Supports SVGA mode up to 1280x1024 resolution. Written in C, the architecture includes a Lisp-scripting engine.
- Beneath a Steel Sky - Point-and-click adventure game set in a dystopian future. Written in assembly.
- Catacomb (⭐145) - 2D top-down shooter developed by Softdisk (later becoming id Software). Supports EGA and CGA graphics. Written in Turbo Pascal and assembly.
- Catacomb 3D (⭐198) - First-person shooter in fantasy setting developed by Softdisk (later becoming id Software). Features pseudo-3D graphics with raycasting technique. Supports EGA graphics. Written in C and assembly. Compiled with Borland C++ 3.1.
- Commander Keen in Keen Dreams (⭐2k) - Side-scrolling platform game developed by id Software. Keen Dreams is the Commander Keen game created between Keen 3 and Keen 4 (often considered "Keen 3.5"), but was not widely released. Written in C and assembly.
- Descent (⭐410) - First sci-fi FPS/space shooter to feature entirely true 3D graphics. Written in C and assembly.
- Doom (⭐17k) - Sci-fi FPS developed by id Software where you fight demons from hell on Mars. The DOS-specific code for Doom could not be published because of a dependency to the licensed DMX sound library, hence why it's cleaned up and only the Linux source is there. However, the Heretic and Hexen projects contain the original DOS code in a way where DMX-related code is removed.
- Duke Nukem 3D - FPS developed by Apogee featuring the iconic character Duke Nukem. Written in C. Compiled with Watcom C/C++ 10.0.
- Heretic (⭐48) - Dark fantasy FPS running on id Software's Doom engine.
- Hovertank 3D (⭐253) - FPS developed by id Software. Features pseudo-3D graphics with raycasting technique, before Catacomb 3D and Wolfeinstein 3D. Written in C and assembly.
- Quake (⭐5.5k) - FPS developed by id Software set in a fully 3D world. Written in C. Compiled with DJGPP for DOS.
- Rise of the Triad: Dark War (⭐100) - FPS developed by Apogee. It was developed as a follow-up to Wolfenstein 3D, but was altered and became a standalone game instead. Uses a heavily modified Wolfenstein 3D engine. Written in C.
- Sopwith - Side-scrolling shoot 'em up created by David L. Clark in 1984. The game involves piloting a Sopwith biplane, attempting to bomb enemy buildings while avoiding fire from enemy planes and various other obstacles.
- Wolfenstein 3D (⭐2.4k) - FPS developed by id Software set in the Nazi German prison Castle Wolfenstein. Features pseudo-3D graphics with raycasting technique. Written in C and assembly.
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