It says I can access the in-game manual and map by pressing F5 and F6 respectively.

All it does for me is pauses the game for a minute.

While the manual and maps are already downloadable as extras, it would be beyond useful if I could access them without having to leave the game.

It is certainly possible to view them at the same time on the desktop. Dosbox on one side, a PDF reader on the other.

*BT shipped in a time where storage was at an absolute premium; where a few extra in-game dialog lines could double media cost to ship the game (by requiring a second mechanical disk). Most games of the era, did not have an in-game manual. That didn't start until after CD's became mainstream, and designer were looking to fill up the 'endless' space on the disc.

Yeah I am forced to alt-tab >_<

While I thank you for your input, I should point out that, this isn't Dos. It's an windows collection of games, that emulates Apple II ports on the side. (Apple II does use a prompt, but I'm not sure if I would call it a Dos computer. As I'm pretty sure it predates Dos)

Sadly that still doesn't explain why I can't access the in-game manuals or maps.

Technically APPLE DOS existed for the Apple II, but these days I've only seen the PC compatible versions; the ones that came with InXile's "The Bard'sTale". Are you sure the BT versions you have are emulated Apple software?

Boxer is a fork of the DOSbox emulator. It runs DOS games on Macs.

*I didn't mean [before], to alt-tab, I meant to actually position both on the desktop at the same time; though at the time I did not know that you were using unfamiliar versions of BT.

Sadly none of these games can run on the recent versions of Windows without emulation, so whatever version you have ~running on Windows, seems likely the DOS version running in DOSbox or a different emulator.

Well it's not Dosbox. Because it is run through the Bard's Tale collection on this site. Which uses it's own compatibility.

Yes, via KEGS.

This is interesting. In my case, I bought the retail cd's of Inxile's "The Bard's Tale", and it came with the DOS versions of BT1, 2 & 3.

At the time that I later got "The Bard's Tale" on GoG, I could not run InXile's game on my system [incompatible]; so I never installed the GoG version, but now (that I have a new system) I will, having seen that the GoG versions of BT1, 2 & 3, are not versions I've seen before.

The manual and map keys try to load them up in your browser.
They probably did that in the background. You still have to alt-tab to see them.