The Falcon Epopee - The history of Falcon 4
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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
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So some of us will never know the truth.
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So some of us will never know the truth.
Actually, I don’t think anyone can claim and be right about knowing the whole true story. Anyone smart enough would know better than to try to make that claim, I’d assert. Truth has a subjective quality to it to begin with and besides, I don’t think there is any one person even that can claim to have witnessed or participated in all the efforts that have gone by. This is why I think it’s ultimately like an NP complete problem - there’s no way to find and document the whole story in a reasonable amount of time or words so why even try?? How much better then to simply look back at all the turbulent water under the bridge already and marvel that Falcon4.0 is still afloat at all.
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Take you point and heartily agree with the sentiment. We need to look forward not back.
Having said that… the birth of a phenomenon and its growing pains will always be of interest to some… particularly those of us there at the beginning and who continue to devote our time to it. I don’t think it should be completely ignored just because its past is messy and possibly painful. Continued Falcon refinement (in all its variants) has hopefully still got some life in it and with a bit of luck will continue for many years. As a piece of entertainment software it is unique and it deserves more than a mere foot-note in history. Yes, history as you say is subjective as all human history tends to be. F4 is no less susceptible to opinion, hazy recollection and not a little bias, that’s just the way it is. As someone with their name in the credits at the back of the original manual you certainly have more history than most of us. I hope you will indulge the rest of us in our humble curiosity and allow us a little peek into its past now and then?I think Skyhawk’s account is fair, impartial and well written considering it’s not his native language. He even admits to it not being 100% accurate & invites others to correct it. I salute him. Personally I’m only vaguely interested in who pissed who off who or even how fragmented the teams became (but I respect that others may be). What I am interested in is the bigger picture. The one that helps explain why the hell we’re all still here executing thirteen year old code on our multi-core, GPU addled mainframes running software that’s more stable and infinitely more sophisticated than 99% of ‘triple A’ titles on the market today. Good luck to the FreeFalcon guys I say and anyone else who cares to keep the old girl alive. Falcon 4 is one of a kind (well several of a kind and I think it will be a long while yet before the competition catches up. No, I’m not dissing the competition but they’re still flat footed by the dynamic campaign (however imperfect) and without that, their cool gfx and avionics lose a little shine due to their placement in a hollow, barren and sterile world. (Don’t bitch to me about that btw checkout this epic thread here if you disagree: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=64161
Keep up the good work Skyhawk -
Very eloquently put……for a yorkshireman…;):D
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The truth? Well, I’ve probably forgotten more than I remember, but I can say in the age old battle between FF and BMS, the differences were more philosophical in nature brung about by differing management styles. Those fundamental differences ultimately brought about the creation of two different Falcon teams. Over time, the difference in versions between either Falcon flavor created a scenario where “bringing it all back together under one roof” was literally impossible. I’m not sure about FF management at this point in time, but I will say that we’ve long since stopped worrying about that issue and have just focussed on what we’re doing. I really think our success has been for 2 reasons: 1) We have a REALLY great coding team. 2) Our EULA is awesome. The whole team was involved in writing it, and if you are a modder I believe it is designed to work for you, and not against you.
One last side note: Our management style is practically non existent. For some of you bean counters (me included as one of them), this might surprise you. The only down side we’ve really experienced is relatively slow releases. We are well aware of the issue, but honestly, I don’t think many folks care. We’re happy to just do what we do, and release when it all “feels right”.
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The higher ranks a Falconeer gets are highly dependant on his patience.
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Excellent! Thank you.
Good read, very informative and puts some pieces of the puzzle together, I have wondered about quite a few times, since I’ve entered the Falcon arena. Korea, that is, I s’pose… ? !
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I really think our success has been for 2 reasons: 1) We have a REALLY great coding team. 2) Our EULA is awesome. The whole team was involved in writing it, and if you are a modder I believe it is designed to work for you, and not against you.
+1 for the EULA. For me, that’s the “feature” of BMS I like the most, because it constrains Falcon 4 to an even brighter future.
One last side note: Our management style is practically non existent. For some of you bean counters (me included as one of them), this might surprise you. The only down side we’ve really experienced is relatively slow releases. We are well aware of the issue, but honestly, I don’t think many folks care. We’re happy to just do what we do, and release when it all “feels right”.
Looks like some open source project management. And always released in 3-4 we… when it is ready.
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+1 on the BMS EULA. It encourages innovation from interested modders. Also, the EULA encourages inexperienced users to actually to mod something. Rather than have them sitting around and complaining that next release isn’t here yet. I’ll admit it, I fall into second column.