Tornado 25th Anniversary in 2018

[Frankie]

Digital Integration's Tornado was released in late March 1993. Year 2018 will be this venerable game's 25th Anniversary.

If you fall into any one of below categories,

(1) Tornadoholic
(2) ex-Tornado gamer
(3) a person who remembers Tornado well and fondly
(4) a person who can barely remember Tornado because it's been like 24 years since you last played it
(5) curious and bemused DCS flight simmer
(6) ex-development team member of Digital Integration
(7) innocent bystander
( all of the above
(9) none of the above

I have one question to ask of you....What would you like to do or see happen for Tornado's 25th Anniversary?

[Speedwagon]

Hi Frankie,

Great question and the perfect time to start the ball rolling. Here are some ideas:

• Tribute to all the fine folks from Digital Integration who created this masterpiece.
• Special tribute to the late David Marshall for an incredible legacy of flight simulations.
• Unique 25th Anniversary logo. Calling all graphic artists...
• Tornado available on Steam or GOG, including the original manual, maps & control summary card.
• Initial release of Tornado 2!

Blue Skies,

Speedwagon

[Tom N]

Hi guys,

in addition to the control summary card there should be some more cards:
- "best dosbox configuration setup"-display,
- the description of new key functions (summary of key function changes made) AND
- a small dosbox-mapper key-rebinding-guide so to not let dosbox keybindings interfere so much with all those used buttons in Tornado (right now i think all those autopilot settings from "f6" to "f10" might start something via dosbox, e.g. screenshot, start/ stop recording...)

--> remapping dosbox keybindings is done by pressing ctrl+"f1" any time within a dosbox.exe-program

[Frankie]

Latest Credits page as of 29th May 2018

Credits page is shown when the backslash "\" key is pressed. It disappears when the key is released. Details have been parred down to the full names. There is insufficient memory to display all text strings of responsibilities. Adding the details will result in a "Memory segment error".

The current size of the latest fully-modded FLIGHT.EXE is 604,560 bytes. The original 1994 FLIGHT.EXE weighed in at 583,344 bytes. I believe that it is still possible to cut loose certain lesser-used variables and arrays in order to free up more RAM.

UPDATE 29th May 2018
I managed to scrimp and save more memory by cutting off various object files that aren't needed. Here's what I did:
Before          Action                                                     After
=======  =====================              =============
604,560      Removed CGA objs                                    604,532 bytes
604,532      Removed HGC objs                                    604,532 bytes
604,532      Changed cmd line arg len from 130 to 30    604,464 bytes
604,464      Hacked LOOKDOWN.ASM                           604,368 bytes
604,368      Removed MESAGES.ASM/OBJ                     603,536 bytes
603,536      Added the full Team Credits page                603,712 bytes
603,712      Restored Lookdown code and titles              603,808 bytes

Conclusion: I saved 724 bytes, LOL! Dumpster diving, saving scraps. If you notice, I modified the LOOKDOWN.ASM file and managed to save a 100 bytes. This is what the result looked like:

But I can hardly recommend this as (1) readability suffers; (2) I have no time to spend to reformat the selection boxes that used to border the original labels which were displayed in full text. So I decided that it wasn't worth it, and restored the lookdown screen and LOOKDOWN.ASM source code to its original state.

The GOOD NEWS is that I also managed to save enough in order to add back the full credits details of the DI development team members. Here it is again, this time restored to the latest FLIGHT.EXE.

I can save more memory if I can convert the credits page into a BT2 image file. The Lookdown screen menus are in text which overlay the Lookdown image file. Converting those text into an image file should save more memory.

Cheers
Frankie Kam

[Frankie]

Tornado Visual Enhancements 2018

End

[Asid]

Wow. That is a lot of work you have put in my friend. Some great additions there.

Your passion and energy for Tornado seems endless.