The Falcon Epopee - The history of Falcon 4
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Hi there,
So beside the history chart, another pet project of mine is to keep trace of events that occurred thorough F4 history.
Back in 2002, I started to write the “history of Falcon 4” in my native language, continuously updating the article every few months to keep track of important events occurring within the community. You might have already came across it, for example in this GF thread or on that website (both links dead as of today).
With the release of Falcon BMS, it was time to update the article again. Not only it is available for the very first time in English, but it has also been entirely reworked to understand better the complex legacy our simulator has left behind.
Before proceeding, a few remarks about this work:
- This is a continuously work-in-progress draft, far from being perfect. Remember I’m not a native English speaker, and I actually really need fresh eyes to have a look at it.
- Lot of hours of writing went to this document through the years, not to mention most of its sections have been rewritten many times. It is therefore difficult to grasp the real facts or to stay truly objective, and I will not pretend that what you are about to read is 100% accurate.
- I’m interested in what you have to say, particularly if you are or have been involved in community development. Simply send me a message on the BMS forums with your remarks, and I will use your input to improve future version of the “Falcon Epopee”.
This document is my personal “Thank you” to the numerous people that gave and still give their free time to keep the Falcon alive. I report here the history of Falcon 4, but it is all of you who made it. I hope you will enjoy the “Falcon Epopee” (PDF) as much as I enjoyed writing it through the past decade.
This document is released under the Creative Common BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
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Nice resume.
Good add-on to the history chart. Thanks for sharing. -
Some great detail in there that I never knew before, and certainly adds some richness when read with the history chart.
Nice work Spyhawk, thanks for sharing.
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Love the article. Thanks!
kaRadi
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I really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for doing all of the research!
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I too really appreciate the epicness (Epopee?) of the tale so far, please keep it up. We need an unofficial F4 historian and you’re doing an excellent job Spyhawk.
Has there ever been a piece of computer software that’s been in such constant development for this long? (ok forget MS Windows- pah) Surely this must be some kind of record? As someone who’s coded and worked with developers I know how ridiculously hard it can be to pick up and mess with someone else’s code – nearly always better to chuck it and start over. I just can’t imagine how many different keyboards have been clattering away on this baby over the years? This should be spaghetti but somehow its filet mignon. I bought Falcon 4 on release in 1998 (what a classic year - Half-Life, Baldur’s Gate, Starcraft, Fallout 2, Unreal and Falcon 4) I hung in there through to the early SuperPak years before giving up. I stumbled across BMS by complete accident trying to find patches for DCS A-10. Now thanks to you and about 4000 coders I know what I missed. Damn it
Cheers
Drooly -
Nice work! Thanks for sharing this with us. I find this most insightfull for all n00bs and Falcon fans! Keep up the great work!
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I too really appreciate the epicness (Epopee?) of the tale so far, please keep it up. We need an unofficial F4 historian and you’re doing an excellent job Spyhawk.
I guess I can assign the “F4 historian” title to myself, especially as I’m probably the only one to compete in that category
F4 development is definitively epic, considering its trouble history. The word “Epopee” is derived from French (which in turn derived it from Greek).Has there ever been a piece of computer software that’s been in such constant development for this long? (ok forget MS Windows- pah) Surely this must be some kind of record? As someone who’s coded and worked with developers I know how ridiculously hard it can be to pick up and mess with someone else’s code – nearly always better to chuck it and start over. I just can’t imagine how many different keyboards have been clattering away on this baby over the years? This should be spaghetti but somehow its filet mignon.
That’s an interesting question I’m also wondering about. Falcon 4 is obviously one of the oldest source code still in activity. From development start in 1994 to nowadays, that’s nearly 18 years! The oldest software project still alive I’m aware about are BRL-CAD (1983), Windows (1985), GNU Emacs (1985) and GNU GCC (1988 ) and the Linux kernel (1991). MS Flight Simulator was also rather aged (1982), but was terminated a few years ago… There are also several well known commercial software (AutoCAD, SPSS, …), but Falcon might be the oldest “game” still alive. Pretty impressive, isn’t it?
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You meant Alameda California right? Just proof reading it …
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This post is deleted! -
You meant Alameda California right? Just proof reading it …
Right! That was iBeta that was located in CO. Corrected.
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I need to read this Spyhawk. You have intrigued my interest in what you do ever since I met you at GF and then FF. Never known anyone else who dared take this task in all these years.
Thanks,
Will check it NOW!!
RAM22
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… Windows (1985) …
Minor, minor detail, but all the currently existing versions of Windows are based on Windows NT, which started development in 1989 and was first released in 1993.
Also, thank you for the history. Very interesting.
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Very good summery Skyhawk, the written summary really does help put the history chart into better perspective. A few things I have always wondered, after LP disbanded, what ever happened to the developers? Also, do you know the name/callsign of the orginal Erazor/Efalcon author and did he ever return to the falcon scene after F4UT? Finally, you reported that Hasbro was the last licenese holder of the orginal Microprose Falcon code, do they still hold the original IP license or has Falcond4 become abandoneware like Falcon3 and earlier versions?
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I was clueless to most happenings in the F4 world since I left it for about 2-3 years back in the SP3 days. It is amazing how you collected all this information. Good journalism if you ask me
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“When BMS decided to support a single version (the flavour based on SuperPAK 4) to ease its future work, the FreeFalcon team decided to definitely split off from BMS and to develop its own version of the code with the CobraOne executable”
It’s been a while, but I recall the exact opposite happening. BMS was supporting both teams, which apparently made FF management unhappy(no idea why). FF released an EXE update in their own update with out the consent of all BMS coders. BMS was disappointed. Despite this, FF’s coders remained in the BMS team, taking full advantage of code changes, but contributing nothing. Then FF released another update, with a locked DB, and an EXE that included everything BMS had done, plus some stuff they were developing on the side (and fixing some bugs they left us). At some point after that, BMS chose to support SP exclusively because supporting FF was impossible (locked DB, split EXE development).
Anyhow, it was an interesting read.
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pthighs> You’re correct
A few things I have always wondered, after LP disbanded, what ever happened to the developers? Also, do you know the name/callsign of the orginal Erazor/Efalcon author and did he ever return to the falcon scene after F4UT? Finally, you reported that Hasbro was the last licenese holder of the orginal Microprose Falcon code, do they still hold the original IP license or has Falcond4 become abandoneware like Falcon3 and earlier versions?
Chuckles> No idea about the real name of eRazor (that’s his callsign, obviously). He left as he didn’t want his new gfx engine to be included in a commercial product when G2i stepped in. I never heard from him again, and he seems to have totally disappeared
Hasbro was bought by Infogrammes that changed its name to “Atari” later. Falcon 4.0 is a copyright of and owned by Tommo, Inc. and published under the Retroism Label. Falcon is not an “abandoware”… modding has always been operating in kind of a grey zone, apart from the SuperPAK series and Allied Force. I also believe Falcon 3 is not an abandoware neither.
LP developers have left F4 scene as far as I know… I doubt the existing groups would like to work with them again.I was clueless to most happenings in the F4 world since I left it for about 2-3 years back in the SP3 days. It is amazing how you collected all this information. Good journalism if you ask me
Bushmaster78FS> Most of the information was collected through the years. You wouldn’t probably not be able to do the same today, as lot of source have faded away since then (Frugal’s, …). Hopefully I started to keep track of the events long time ago.
“When BMS decided to support a single version (the flavour based on SuperPAK 4) to ease its future work, the FreeFalcon team decided to definitely split off from BMS and to develop its own version of the code with the CobraOne executable”
It’s been a while, but I recall the exact opposite happening. BMS was supporting both teams, which apparently made FF management unhappy(no idea why). FF released an EXE update in their own update with out the consent of all BMS coders. BMS was disappointed. Despite this, FF’s coders remained in the BMS team, taking full advantage of code changes, but contributing nothing. Then FF released another update, with a locked DB, and an EXE that included everything BMS had done, plus some stuff they were developing on the side (and fixing some bugs they left us). At some point after that, BMS chose to support SP exclusively because supporting FF was impossible (locked DB, split EXE development).
mrivers> Well, I’ve got the story told from one side only here, and that’s a point I felt a bit uncomfortable with. Thanks for your insight, I’ll update the document soon. Feel free to notify of any other mistake
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You should offer this document up to BMS maybe they would include in the docs folder. This is a must read.
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You should offer this document up to BMS maybe they would include in the docs folder. This is a must read.
I don’t think so. It’s interesting, I grant you and there are things in there that ring true but there’s a lot that - at best - one might describe as subjective interpretation of events; things like the particularly egregious example mrivers mentions above for one. Personally, aside from making that general statement I’m not interested in getting into the specifics though. I’d urge everyone instead to focus on getting things right as we go forward rather than arguing the toss in the minutiae of the twists and turns that got us here and the relative contributions of all the players.
Many talented and dedicated people put a lot of work into the body of works that one can put under the “Falcon 4.0” general label. Arguably what you see in BMS releases couldn’t and wouldn’t have happened but for those contributions and efforts of all those people, even the elements that form no part of what BMS content is today. It’s probably also true to say that even today I doubt BMS is the only Falcon 4.0 game in town so the broader work continues and long may it be so.
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I also tend to think in the same way as Boxer. F4 history is really interesting, but let’s face it: partof it isn’t quite beautiful to see, even in the very early days, but that is all what happened that shaped what Falcon has become today.
Arguably what you see in BMS releases couldn’t and wouldn’t have happened but for those contributions and efforts of all those people, even the elements that form no part of what BMS content is today.
This perfectly sums up what this document is all about