14th March 2006, 1:46 AM
That is just not true, particularly for DOS games. DOS, remember, gives the game FULL control -- there isn't really much of an OS between your game and the hardware. Only commands the game allows work. Now, if you're running in Windows some commands will come through -- Alt-Enter for resize, Alt-Tab for task switching, the Windows key to open the Start menu, and a few others (also stuff like Control-F11/F12 in DOSBox, to change the speed of emulation)... but printscreen?
Hmm... you made me wonder, actually... and indeed, Printscreen (and Alt-Printscreen) are override commands in Windows DOS boxes, at least in WinME. That is, it'll override the internal game command for the button and do a default function, and do the windows default action, unless you disable the override keys in the properties screen (I think XP cripples these options, so don't be surprised if you don't get such choices as enabling or disabling memory types or specific override keys on a per-game basis...)
Testing with DOSBox, printscreen does seem to take shots inside the emulation, but the colors are all messed up... not surprising that there are issues... really, just run the game in a DOS or DOSBox window and take Printscreen shots there, remembering Alt-Enter to resize (if it won't run in a window as a dos program, emulate, because that can run in a window just fine).
Hmm... you made me wonder, actually... and indeed, Printscreen (and Alt-Printscreen) are override commands in Windows DOS boxes, at least in WinME. That is, it'll override the internal game command for the button and do a default function, and do the windows default action, unless you disable the override keys in the properties screen (I think XP cripples these options, so don't be surprised if you don't get such choices as enabling or disabling memory types or specific override keys on a per-game basis...)
Testing with DOSBox, printscreen does seem to take shots inside the emulation, but the colors are all messed up... not surprising that there are issues... really, just run the game in a DOS or DOSBox window and take Printscreen shots there, remembering Alt-Enter to resize (if it won't run in a window as a dos program, emulate, because that can run in a window just fine).