Theme Hospital on your Mac

By CMoz|Geek Things, fun bits & bytes ~, Opinion & Rants|69 Comments

Theme Hospital running through DOS emulator on my 13" MacBook Pro.

This post is all about how to play a DOS game on your mac. If you want to play a classic game and you are on Windows 7, there is a great guide on dancolestudios for you folks.

DOSBox app once downloaded.

After a session at work this week, my students and I were discussing some of these classic games and in particular Theme Hospital came up. This is a game I totally loved and could easily see myself getting back into that fabulous addiction… but how, could this still be possible to play.

One member in the group came across Dos Box, which is an open source DOS emulator for BeOS, Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2, and Windows. It is primarily focused on running DOS Games. One of which is Theme Hospital! 

If you aren’t aware of the game – here is a little bit of information about it:

Theme Hospital is a simulation computer game developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts in 1997, in which the player designs and operates a hospital. Like most of Bullfrog’s games, Theme Hospital is permeated by an eccentric sense of humour. The game is the thematic successor to Theme Park, a game also produced by Bullfrog.

So to get this to work, you need to have a copy of Dos Box (free) and you can get a copy here: dosbox

The DMG file as downloaded from the site.

The file was downloaded into my personal downloads folder, so have a look there and you can click it to mount it.

Once this is mounted, just click on the disk, and open the DOSBox file, you can move it into your Applications folder if you like, but I’ve just used mine this way and it works fine.

This will then open your dos window.

You then need to grab yourself a copy of Theme Hospital, which you should already have. If you can’t find it, there are copies available in a few locations, including a free trial from CNET which is here: theme-hospital-full-version. I went for a different version of the full game which I got from searching, and these were a few options:

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox/files/dosbox/0.74/DOSBox-0.74_Universal.dmg
• http://rapidshare.com/#!download|135l32|311566050|THEME_HOSPITAL.dmg|189708
• Download Theme Hospital [Full Version Download + Multiplayer Patch + Windows XP/Vista Support]

While that downloads, create yourself a folder that will be the new home for this game (and any others you may download).

I created this folder in my home folder > username > and I called it games. Be sure to just use one word and no spaces folks.

When the download is complete, copy the folder of the game into the games folder, which you created in your user area.

My folder games, with the files inside.

You then need to make a minor change to the config file within it. This is inside the HOSPITAL folder, the file HOSPITAL.CFG > open it with TextEdit.app

Make the following changes to the file:

INSTALL_PATH=C:\hospital\ (note the \ after the folder name)
INSTALL_TYPE=MAX
LANGUAGE=ENG

The install path is the path where you are putting this file. I kept mine the same as above.

Now you need to do a few steps to get this to install into your C: drive.

Create the C drive:

Open DOSBox.app

You then need to mount the games folder you created as a C: drive so it can install the game.

Type

MOUNT C  ~/games [EDIT: Note there is a space after typing C]

This will make the drive accessible. You then will Change Directory to use that disk.

Type

C:

Your Prompt should now start with the letter C: and NOT Z:

Now you need to install the game. At this prompt type the install file which is called SETUP.EXE

So just type that filename at the prompt.

This will launch the file and start setup within that small DOS window.

Install the game as you would normally, set your language, and then they ask you to choose your sound set up.

Once it is all installed, you can then exit and I closed down the window to start new.

So, the following steps that you’ll need to do each time to play the game:

1. OPEN DOSBox
2. MOUNT C~/games
3. C:
4. CD HOSPITAL (change the directory in the drive to be where the game is saved, in this case it’s in HOSPITAL)
5. hospital.exe (launch the game file)

This will launch the game! Dr.Moz is in the house, happy playing.

Would love to hear if you’ve found any other great classics & got them to work!

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