The fourth version of Flight Simulator hit store shelves before the end of 1989. Back then, we had to battle with limited memory, and any idea of multi-monitor compatibility was ridiculous. However, today we have affordable monitors, the magic of DOSBox, and enthusiasts like Wayne Piekarski, who modified and coordinated three instances of Flight Simulator 4.0 to create a realistic flight simulator with graphics that were the best on the market 35 years ago.
In 1989, I was leaving behind my beloved Atari 2600 clone to start an unforgettable adventure with the Commodore 64. Unfortunately, I never played any simulator on that computer (let's say I lived on Giana Sisters and MicroProse Soccer), although the story changed completely with my first PC and a copy of F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0, which I don't recall where it came from.
Flight Simulator had always been a priority, but there's no point denying it: pirated copies were useless without the manual to learn how to play, and Flight Simulator was always beyond the instincts of any eleven- or twelve-year-old child. A couple of decades later, flight simulator enthusiasts are having our revenge.
Besides running those classics with speed and graphical quality we could only dream of in the '90s, the available documentation is enormous, to the point that we can do things absolutely incompatible with the original code. For example... this:
Flight Simulator 4 on Three 42-Inch Screens
The videos last barely twenty seconds, but I have no doubt saying that Wayne Piekarski's work is a true work of art. Synchronizing three instances of Flight Simulator 4.0 in DOSBox requires much more effort than it appears. The first challenge was to analyze memory dumps in DOSBox to find the region where the game writes coordinates.
Then he needed to interpret its encoding: Flight Simulator 4.0 records six general values (North, East, Direction, Pitch, Roll, and Altitude) in 18 different bytes. The next step requires taking those 18 bytes from a central instance and injecting them into secondary instances (both sides of the cockpit). Finally, the two lateral instances must modify the camera and field of view so that synchronization with the main screen is exact. Piekarski automated this last part with wmctrl and xdotool.
The modified version of DOSBox is available on GitHub, but those interested in reproducing Piekarski's project will need to obtain a copy of Flight Simulator 4.0, something not too complicated nowadays if we consider all the abandonware portals on the Web.
Official site: click here
