Japanese ADF/TAW

[Krishty]

Flight sim heritage has two amazing articles about the Japanese versions of ADF (F-22 Air Dominance Fighter 完全日本語版, “Complete Japanese Version”) and TAW.

Japanese TAW even comes with Kanji radio messages!

cockpit1.jpg (69.44 KiB) Viewed 2886 times

I don’t think these modifications are possible without source access, for ADF prints text using a hard-coded bitmap font that seems to be limited to 128 characters. This version was distributed by Japanese company Imagineer – which had realized the PlayStation port of TFX in 1996. It does make sense that they had source code.

I couldn’t find any ISO on the Internet Archive or anywhere else on the web. Neither could our Discord buddies.

I’ll use this thread to gather any information I can find.

[Krishty]

The Japanese TAW version required patches separate from the known patches for English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Luckily, the Internet Archive has archived the latest patch from 1999-02-19 (version 5.191J), for D3D as well as Glide:

taw0219dx.7z

(961.91 KiB) Downloaded 323 times

taw0219gl.7z

(961.7 KiB) Downloaded 320 times

The timestamp on the executables says they were compiled 1999-02-08 at 05:07 UTC (which would be 14:07 Japanese time).

Aside from executables, the patches contain did1st.dat files.

The 1998-12-03 hotfix is special. It is probably the smallest did1st.dat we have ever seen being shipped!

tawfix981203.7z

(969 Bytes) Downloaded 326 times

[Krishty]

ADF完全日本語版 also received exclusive patches. Sadly, they are in the same proprietary format as those for the other languages, so I can’t look inside without actually touching my system.

ADF完全日本語版 came in three versions: One was the “cheap” one with just an online quick reference. These are its patches (for D3D and Glide, respectively):

f22a-ed2.exe

(1.82 MiB) Downloaded 325 times

f22a-eg2.exe

(1.3 MiB) Downloaded 319 times

The other versions were Complete and Premium. They were technically identical, but one included a book. These are its patches:

f22a-jd1.exe

(1.84 MiB) Downloaded 311 times

f22a-jg1.exe

(1.34 MiB) Downloaded 307 times

[mikew]

tawfix981203 contains one file, and it's udl\f22demo.udl

[Krishty]

tawfix981203 contains one file, and it's udl\f22demo.udl

… and the patch just restores it to be the same as in ADF. It’s the unit list for the first demo mission that plays.

So I guess we’ll have to wait for a Japanese TAW ISO to find out how they screwed that file up. Maybe they wanted to replace a callsign but by accident pasted the complete source code instead? 😆

[Krishty]

The boxed Japanese TAW comes in version 5.181J, compiled on 1998-10-29.

The executables are a whopping 500 KiB larger than their English counterparts! From a quick look, they actually contain ~500 KiB more executable code, which is a lot. I don’t know (yet) whether this is due to compiler optimizations being disabled, or due to it actually having more dependencies/features.

[mikew]

Cool! Do you get a nice big Japanese manual as well?

[Krishty]

Cool! Do you get a nice big Japanese manual as well?

232 pages … and a headache about how to scan it!

The last page lists the staff.

Localization programmer: Prezam

The only programmer, and three “debug” helpers. Could be someone to search for.

[Krishty]

Some of the additional executable code may come from the copy protection that requires a CD-ROM being inserted:

image.png (1.23 KiB) Viewed 2837 times

[Krishty]

The Japanese RSO is much smaller: Only 67 MiB on the CD-ROM instead of 400.

Most of it is concentrated in DATA1.CAB of the InstallShield installer. I cannot extract it fully, but it contains an 8.15 MiB DID1ST.DAT.

This, in turn does not contain encrypted high-entropy data like the English/French/German/Italian/Spanish versions do. It starts with a “dummy file” that is mostly a tiny directory listing of DID’s network drive:

Code: Select all

dummy file
TRANSTXTR GLOBAL NUMBERS

99=tex_2080=tex_1
81=tex_2
82=tex_3
83=tex_4
84=tex_5
85=tex_6
86=tex_7
87=tex_8
88=tex_9
89=tex_10
90=tex_11
91=tex_12
92=tex_13
93=tex_14
94=tex_15
95=tex_16
96=tex_17
97=tex_18
98=tex_19




























										Neil Ambler
derrick.3       29346   6-30-97  10:55 
dnky90.3        20096   6-30-97  11:27 
dnky_90.3       20096   6-25-97  10:25 
donkey.3        20828   6-30-97  11:17 
drk90.3         25448   6-30-97  11:27 
drum90.3         7672   6-30-97  11:40 
drums.3          7408   6-30-97  11:33 
drum_90.3        7672   6-30-97  11:46 
drum_180.3       7408   6-30-97  11:41 
storage.3        5662   6-30-97  14:03 
strg90.3         5456   6-30-97  14:09 
strg_90.3        5456   6-30-97  14:16 
strg_180.3       5254   6-30-97  14:12 
well.3           9902   6-30-97  14:42 
well90.3        10122   6-25-97  10:25 
well_90.3       10122   6-25-97  10:25 
 drk90.3         25448
drk90.3a        27912
drk90.3aa       27912
drk90.3b        27498
drum90.3         6730
drum90.3a        7896
drum90.3aa       8918
drums.3          7408
drums.3a         8734
drums.3b         8734
drum_90.3        7672
drum_90.3a       8918
drum_180.3       7408
drum_180.3a      8734


 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\b_tank_1.3

b_tank_1.3       5620  10-02-97  16:43 
         5,620 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\b_tank_2.3

b_tank_2.3       5616   7-01-97  16:19 
         5,616 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\bfct90.3

bfct90.3        15328  10-02-97  16:15 
        15,328 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\bfct_180.3

bfct_180.3      15438  10-02-97  16:19 
        15,438 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\bfct_90.3

bfct_90.3       15238  10-02-97  16:22 
        15,238 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\bigfact.3

bigfact.3       15070  10-02-97  16:10 
        15,070 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\carpark.3

carpark.3          90   6-25-97  15:57 
            90 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\chimny_1.3

chimny_1.3       8498  10-02-97  16:46 
         8,498 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\fact90.3

fact90.3        13434  10-02-97  16:51 
        13,434 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\fact_90.3

fact_90.3       15236   7-02-97  11:22 
        15,236 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\factory1.3

factory1.3      13162   7-02-97  11:13 
        13,162 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\silo2.3

silo2.3          9238   7-02-97  15:55 
         9,238 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\w_house1.3

w_house1.3      10988  10-02-97  17:15 
        10,988 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\w_house2.3

w_house2.3      10570  10-02-97  17:17 
        10,570 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\ware1.3

ware1.3         13288  10-02-97  17:22 
        13,288 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\ware90.3

ware90.3        13630  10-02-97  17:24 
        13,630 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\ware_180.3

ware_180.3      13292  10-02-97  17:25 
        13,292 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\ware_90.3

ware_90.3       13522  10-02-97  17:26 
        13,522 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

 Volume in drive Q is VOL1        
 Directory of  q:\projects\tfx3\3\_1wh90.3

_1wh90.3        13128   7-03-97  16:50 
        13,128 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs    131,072 bytes allocated
             0 bytes free

After the developer lost interest in filling up the archive like that (or failed at it), a few normal files follow and then kind of semi-random data. It looks like a really bad attempt at creating randomness:

image.png (146.1 KiB) Viewed 5 times

It goes on like this for several megabytes, just with bytes in different ranges than 10…2F shown here.

There are some RA-compressed files in DID1ST.DAT. I’ll have a look at them later.