After running the installer Programme

This game is an MSDOS game. It is based on source code originally written in the early 1990s, so it only recognises certain older sound cards. However any decent windows sound card has a DOS SoundBlaster emulator available for it. It will run happily under Windows 95, 98 or WindowsME in most circumstances, so long as the appropriate steps are taken.

1] Set up your Windows shortcut

In the simple case all you need do first is create a Windows shortcut for the game.

1) Find the game executable (SPMBT.exe) in the root directory where you installed to with windows explorer.

2) Right click on this and drag it to the desktop, and let go of the right mouse button

3) When the pop up dialogue comes into view select 'create shortcut(s) here', and windows will create a shortcut to the game executable

4) Still not finished! - now right click on your new shortcut and select properties from the menu presented. You will see something like this

Beside the icon is the name field - type what you want here

Cmd Line will be from where you dragged the exe from (here I am working in a development directory C:\SPMBT - use whatever you set your path to)

IF the working directory is blank fill it in with the path to the executable ( C:\SPMBT in this case - use your path, obviously!).

Run - My video card is quite happy with 'normal window', however some video cards will not auto switch to a full screen MSDOS window and will leave a set of squishy lines at the top of the screen. Often, all these cards need is for this line to be set to 'maximised' in order to work properly.

Close on exit - I leave this unchecked, so that I can see game error messages such as complaints about no CD in the drive before windows nukes the screen! However some cards will not hold the DOS screen on exit - always auto terminating it, so if you are getting errors, try running the game from a DOS prompt (open a DOS window, navigate to wherever SPMBT is installed then type SPMBT - some folk like to write their own DOS batch file to do this).

Now hit the 'Advanced' button

This is all my PC - and most - will need as Dell set up a decent set of config and autoexec files at the factory, including DOS mode CDROM stuff. However - you may need to check the MS-DOS mode item, to use custom Autoexec.bat and Config.sys statements (e.g. If your DOS mode MSCDEX is NOT loaded by the default autoexec supplied with your PC). See the DOS and Windows help files as to how to set up these files, or contact your PC support.

The old DOS help is on my win 98 CD under tools/oldmsdos. On my Win 95 CD, its in other/oldmsdos. You will need to know what you are doing to use these - the help file is not a Windows help file, so you cannot read it off the CD using Windows. You need to copy help.com, help.hlp, qbasic.exe and qbasic.hlp into a directory on your path. However, typing 'help' at a DOS prompt will give a file mode error (probably as this disk is FAT32 - FAT16 may be OK?). But double clicking on help.com from windows will run the (MS-DOS) help, once you have installed the Qbasic etc. supporting files..

Now select the Memory tab:

Ensure that Uses HMA is selected !

Now the Screen tab:

Just ensure full screen is set here (stops some video cards problems detecting it)

Finally - the misc tab - lots of stuff here:

Ensure that Allow screen saver is NOT repeat NOT checked! - otherwise Windows will assume after a while of playing that you are idle, as it does not detect DOS key or mouse activity, and fire up your screen saver behind the game, and performance will suffer all of a sudden! Background - set to always suspend so that if you alt-tab out to windows, this halts the game Termination - I remove warn if still active, so I can terminate the thing easier if minimised in Windows. Idle sensitivity - ram this down so that the game gets 100% of the CPU - we do not want windows tasks occurring much behind the game.

5) now we have created the shortcut for the game. It is on the desktop - however this was for ease of creation, and feel free to move this somewhere else that you prefer, drag it to the start menu and drop there for example, or use Taskbar properties/advanced to put it in a program group of your choice. a shortcut is a windows file. Drag and drop onto say your start button - there it is. Or drag it and drop it on the Windows 98 tool bar beside the Internet explorer icons etc. - use the tab on the bars to resize, and you have the instant launch icon.