Falcon
Falcon 2.5 by Mark Hermonat
Version 2.5
A self professed "old man" Mark Hermonat- waxes poetic about his first combat sim Falcon, The F-16 Fighter Simulation v1.0 by Spectrum Holobyte.
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I have always loved the original Falcon 1.0 by Spectrum Holobyte released in 1987. I would play the black bandit mission over and over trying to see how many MiGs I could down before the bingo fuel warning appeared.
(Me too - MiGMan)
Unfortunately it is not playable on todays PC's.
However, I have been playing around inside the assembly language code of Falcon for over a decade and, feeling real nostalgic, I decided to try and fix it so it could be played on todays PC's. My current PC is a Pentium II 266 and it now works fine on it. Hopefully others will benefit from this enhancement as well.
Included is the modified executable which is much improved. It is not the complete game, but, users can just place falcon25.exe in the same folder as falcon.exe and run the falcon25.exe to experience the new code. Over the years I have also made other enhancements and they are included in this version. Here is a compete listing of the changes
Some code took quite awhile to find so I could change it. Unfortunately, because I had to move some code so certain enhancements could be made, the multiplayer head-2-head code had to be cleaned out to make way for some extra code. So, do not select two-player mode as the code that runs it is no longer there.
That's it. Anyone who enjoyed Falcon 1.0 for the PC or Falcon up to version 2.2.2 for the Mac as much as I did can always write me.
Thanks,
Mark Hermonat
Falcon25.exe changes:
- Default speed setting works on fast computers at a speed similar to the original IBM XT machine. Unfortunately, the digital sounds work off of some kind of DMA memory access routines, so they are dependent on the bus speed. Even moslo or other slowdown utilities do not slow down the sound. Maybe someday I'll lick this too.
- Joystick routines now work on fast computers.
- Enemy MiG's now shoot all-aspect heat seeking missiles at you from any direction, including head-on so watch out on those head-on engagments.
- Enemy MiG's will now shoot their guns at you from a head-on position, not just from behind, and they will also shoot their guns from a farther distance. A MiG will now sometimes miss rather than their original 100% hit ratio.
- Actual guns sounds will sound when the Mig shoots at you, instead of the original warning beeps (doh!).
- The F-16 cockpit missile launch indicator now matches 100% with an actual launch of a missile from the MiG.
- The COMED radar screen now shows the target aspect angle of the targeted MiG instead of the original target bearing. This is consistant with the other versions of Falcon, e.g. on the Mac, and improves situational awareness greatly in dogfights. Unfortunately the letter beside the aspect angle number is always R, instead of R for aspect right and L for aspect left. A small price to pay.
- When you finally touchdown on the landing, the wheels now make a screech sound.
- The default scenery is "landscape + dots".
- The default joystick sensitivity is 9.
- The engine power-up from 0% to 60% thrust is now much faster (doesn't matter now with today's faster PC's but with an 8088 it made a big difference).
- Throttle increases and decreases are now much bigger increments so changing thrust in a dogfight is much more responsive.
- When you hit the afterburner, the throttle goes to 100% thrust automatically.
- Reducing throttle below 100%, shuts off the afterburner.
- The "H" key now toggles on and off the HUD.
- Sam launches are now better. They now have a shorter time in the air and only one at a time can be launched. Makes it much more fair when trying to complete some of the missions.
That's it. Anyone who enjoyed Falcon 1.0 for the PC or Falcon up to version 2.2.2 for the Mac as much as I did can always write me.
Thanks,
Mark Hermonat
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