dog / flight demo source?

stringfellow

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Sep 12, 2022
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I'm looking for the source code for the latest dog / flight demo program. I found the an earlier version of the source code (back from 1988), but want to get something similar. My hope is to port that code over to a Windows based program to make this demo to a wider audience of users.

This was attempted before by an SGI employee from the 1990s in conjunction withe SGI's Cosmo GL initiative. The port had work to go the make it complete and was really built for Win95 rather than more recent versions of Windows. It would be even better if I could get this source code.

I know its a long shot, but any help would be appreciated.
 

seclorum

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Sep 14, 2022
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I don't have an answer to your problem, but the subject of flight simulation on SGI machine is fascinating - have you considered trying a Flightgear port as well? I'd be happy to help with any issues there, as I am an avid Flightsim fan - its the only reason I have a Windows machine in my lab (DCS, MSFlight, X-Plane and Flightgear .. all loaded to the gills) ..
 
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AstridRedfern

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Sep 20, 2022
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There's a port of version 2.4 - which I suspect is the same 1988 version you refer to - to a custom ARM device known as the Alice4. The source code for the port is at https://github.com/lkesteloot/alice/tree/master/alice4/software/flight

It's not the VGX/GX/GTX version with the two extra planes, and it's certainly not the latest version, but as it's a port it might be helpful when doing your own port?

---------------

Source code for version 2.4 on another architecture/OS - this time I think it's the original IRIX version - is at https://notwood.net/sgiflight/old-flight-src.zip . https://notwood.net/sgiflight/ is probably the site that you found that earlier Windows port at, though.

It's quite odd that the source download there is for version 2.4, because the Windows binary is a port of version 3.4.1. Again, the source code is for the original version without the 727 and F-14D, but these planes are both in the Windows binary.

Perhaps this source was the basis for the Alice4 code?

EDIT: I did try to run the Windows binary under Wine. It failed almost immediately. If anyone has been able to run it successfully in Wine, do please post some advice in this thread.

---------------

These are the only source downloads I know about - sorry! If anyone knows download links for any other versions, please post them here. I've been working on the SGI Dogfight Wikipedia article, and would love to add more source code links to "External Links".
 
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AstridRedfern

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Although I don't have full source code for any other versions, there was an unofficial patch made to replace the UDP broadcast code with point-to-point communication between two hosts. Since version 2.4 as mentioned above uses UDP broadcast (unlike later versions which used multicast) you might find it relevant. Here's the diff:


It was written by someone working at the Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden.
 

leovinus

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Feb 19, 2023
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For the "flight" source code, there is also
Maybe an earlier version compare to the "Alice" one above?

In any case, I had a bit of fun this weekend to compile and run this on a Mac of all systems. Did not expect it to work but when you run "flight" on top of an IRIS GL emulsion which is on top of Xquartz then you can see the mountains, instruments, b747, etc. The emulation is not perfect but as an old SGI fan it would be great to have to the flight simulator working correctly.

The main issue seems to be on emulation of Iayers in IRIS GL. F16/F18 not viewable from tower either. I fixed a few 32/64 issues but nothing too crazy. Now pondering glXChooseVisual vs glXGetVisualFromFBConfig logic whether there is a more correct way.

Anyway, just wondering whether anyone had more luck to make this run? And whether there are IRIS GL gurus who could advise on how to pin-point the precise issues?
 

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AstridRedfern

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Nice one! I like the "tower" screenshot a LOT!

Incidentally, the "notwood" archive link you posted - I had actually already posted the non-archive version of that link.
 
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leovinus

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Nice one! I like the "tower" screenshot a LOT!

Incidentally, the "notwood" archive link you posted - I had actually already posted the non-archive version of that link.
Thank you :) As a quick followup, I was in touch with maintainer of the IRIS GL layer at https://github.com/irixxxx/igl
That was essential to get "flight" marginally running. I shared my code and patches with him to have a look.
 
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leovinus

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Try
https://web.archive.org/web/20221103023809/https://notwood.net/sgiflight/
In other words, it was archived and I have a local copy as well. Even my version with all changes for modern C (clang, c11) to make it compile and run. Happy to share at some point but in a way I would love to fix and discuss a few more issue first. Unless of course you really want to "dig in" into both "flight" and IGL and everything right now :)
 
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gijoe77

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Feb 18, 2019
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the links on archive.org are bad. I would be interested in trying to get it to compile on an older system - but Im good with all available versions :)
 

AstridRedfern

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@leovinus You mention clang and c11 - but which version of clang on which OS? On Windows, LLVM/Clang (which you can get through Chocolatey) has a more Windows-y backend (including _MSC_VER being defined) than msys2 mingw32's version of clang or msys2 mingw64's version - and those obviously differ in terms of one being 32-bit and one being 64-bit. Then you have more differences in the versions of clang for msys2 clang32 and msys2 clang64, even after you work out which toolchains to install from pacman. msys2 msys's version of Clang is pretty much thouroughly broken IMO, and Cygwin's is both broken and out of date. And I haven't even looked into what appears to be the Clang-based zig cc!

Relevant link: https://blog.conan.io/2022/10/13/Different-flavors-Clang-compiler-Windows.html

And THAT'S before you even consider gcc!

TLDR - even if it compiles for the version of Clang you're using, it may fail for another Clang with the same version number. Not a problem if you're the only one working on it, but if you want to share the code with somebody else to work on...

@gijoe77 - I'm pretty sure the old-flight-src.zip link worked when I posted it, but it is indeed now broken. I've attached a copy, but I can't remember if I got it direct from the notwood.net link, or from a Wayback Machine archive link like the one @leovinus got it from. I think that the contents of the zip file probably hadn't changed in all that time, as it contained source for version 2.4.

The Alice code was a port of version 2.4, so not actually an earlier version. However, the downloadable WIndows binary on notwood was version 3.4.1.

@gijoe77 again - which older system did you want to compile it for? You can download a compiled binary for what I THINK is the Iris 3000 from https://forums.irixnet.org/thread-2858.html
 

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AstridRedfern

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Um... there may be a chance to get the source code for another, very... unusual... version.

Take a look at these scans from the Fall 1987 issue of IRIS Universe:

silicon-graphics-computer-system-sgi_1_9f173831cfb47cb23af3abf8c87ec68d (pages 16 and 17).jpg


Not all the text is legible - and this is a scan I found online, not an issue I own, so I can't re-scan it.

Nevertheless, this reveals that the modded version of flight I've been trying to track down, with Star Wars and Star Trek spacecraft added, was created by one Shannon McKenzie, then of the University of Toronto. And I've actually managed to track him down:

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/shannon-mckenzie-9498801
https://www.facebook.com/shannon.b.mckenzie.9/

As you can guess, I'd very much like to get in touch and ask if he still has a copy of the source code for this version, or at least a compiled binary file he could upload somewhere.

The problem is that these two profiles appear to be his only online presence, so the only way to get in touch with him would be through a Facebook or LinkedIn message. I do not have a Facebook profile, and I really do not want to create one. As for LinkedIn... I'm really not comfortable with having to upload practically my entire CV to a social networking site. Recruiters are able to find me perfectly well by email, and I'm willing to share my CV with them, so I've been able to avoid LI until now. And I'd like to keep it that way.

So if any of you have FB or LinkedIn profiles, could you message Mr. McKenzie to ask him about this?

I should also point out that he's apparently been out of work since October 2021, despite a long and varied career in game development. So if you know of any Canadian game dev firms who are hiring, I would urge you to let him know!
 
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Iris1400#93

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Sep 16, 2023
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I just came across this site... in the mid to late 80s when I was a grad student, SGI donated two IRIS 1400s to our lab... I believe serial numbers 91 & 93. Even with the relatively crude graphics there was something evocative about flight/dog, particularly flying at night. And of course we spent way too much time dogfighting. I actually did have the source code to flight/dog on 1/4 inch tape (with written permission from SGI), but lost track of that long ago.

I spent a little time on trying to get flight/dog running on a mac a few months ago starting with the Alice 4 code, and just recently now I poked a bit more at it while on vacation. I came across a different IrisGL library implemented with OpenGL and X11 called Ygl:

https://directory.fsf.org/wiki?title=Ygl&printable=yes

The source site is unresponsive, but debian packages still exist (https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/libygl4).

The https://github.com/irixxxx/igl implementation mentioned above seems more complete, so I might give that a try. I also came across this:

https://github.com/sgi-demos/igl

which seems to be based on the same original source code. Any advice on which is the best path forward?

Michael Gold is the author of the OpenGL based Windows version of flight, he seems to still be at NVIDIA. I exchanged emails with him a while ago... probably about 10 years ago, requesting source. He seemed open to it, but he never actually got around to sending it.

FYI, The https://notwood.net/sgiflight/ site seems to be working again.
 
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