The Gold Falcon Utilities (GFU) are a collection of shareware utilities design to enhance the Falcon experience.
Compatible with Falcon and the expansions MiG-29 and Hornet, you can read more about it in the earlier 'Falcon 3.0: Unofficial mods & tools' article.
A quick description of the utilities, taken from the GFU readme:
The GOLD FALCON UTILITIES is a set of irreplaceable helpers for the Spectrum Holobyte(r) family of flight simulators! Formerly commercial, now shareware, they include the latest versions FalcCalc, F3Maps, F3Requisition, Show F3, and GFU Menu. This fully integrated package brings out many of the best features of Falcon 3.0(t), MiG-29(t), and Hornet(t).
Although the other utilities worked, the GFU Menu utility which tied them all together in an integrated package would generate an error when run under DOSBox Staging and other modern DOSBox variants.
Thanks to VOGONS members rfnagel, for highlighting the issue and ripsaw8080 for coming up with a workaround, now the GFU Menu utility can be made to work with DOSBox Staging. So a big thank you to both for their work on this!
This guide will cover installation and setup of the Gold Falcon Utilities to work under DOSBox Staging.
Before we begin
The GFU installer will add files to your Falcon installation folder so it is recommended to take a backup copy of this folder, in case you run into issues.
Using the DarkMenu
If you use my DarkMenu to run Falcon then you'll want to grab the latest version which has been amended, with the 'Quit' option replaced with 'Exit to DOS' and 'Quit DOSBox' options. The 'Exit to DOS' option will be useful to get back to a DOS prompt to install GFU.
The latest version can be found in the 'Falcon 3.0: Operation DOSBox Staging' article.
Obtaining Gold Falcon Utilities
A download link to the Gold Falcon Utilities zip archive can be found in the earlier 'Falcon 3.0: Unofficial mods & tools' article.
Installation and setup
The installation steps are as follows:
Create a folder under the DOSBox Staging mounted C: drive folder, to hold the GFU installation files. In my case I created a GFUINST folder, as I use my DOSBox game management strategy I ended up with D:\Games\Dos\Falcon Gold\hdd\GFUINST.
Extract the GFU installation files from the zip archive into your GFU installation folder.
Start a DOSBox Staging session for Falcon, go to the GFU installation folder and run the GFU installer (install.exe).
Follow the installer instructions, I recommend using the default installation folder, C:\GFU as suggested by the installer. The installation should complete without issue. The GFUINST folder is no longer needed and can be deleted, but I recommend keeping it in case you need to install GFU again.
If you try and run the GFU Menu (gfu.bat), you will probably see an error similar to:
Path not found in module GFUMENU at address 0255:6987To avoid this error, create a DEV folder under the DOSBox Staging mounted C: drive folder, you can exit DOSBox and do this in Windows or within DOSBox if you're familiar with DOS commands. In my case I ended up with: D:\Games\Dos\Falcon Gold\hdd\DEV.
Start a DOSBox Staging session for Falcon, if needed. Go to the GFU folder and run the GFU Menu (gfu.bat). The GFU Menu should now start successfully.
Try running one of the utilities. If you are returned to the DOS prompt there is an additional step to take.
Go to the GFU folder and run the setup batch file (run.bat). This resets a GFU setting and then deletes itself, so it's a run once batch file. The utilities should now run from GFU Menu without issue.
Note: The first time you run some of the utilities, they may ask you to specify your Falcon folder.
Setting up a text editor
The GFU Menu utility has the ability to run the default DOS text editor (edit.com). However this is not available in DOSBox Staging, so a different editor needs to be obtained and configured in GFU Menu.
I recommend the FreeDOS text editor, 'FreeDOS Edit' (edit.exe). It can be downloaded from the FreeDOS Edit page.
At present I've not spent a lot of time on the GFU utilities, so I'm not sure if this is a 'required' facility of GFU Menu and the other utilities, or more of a 'nice to have' facility. So this part of the setup may be more optional than absolutely required.
Installation
Create a folder under the DOSBox Staging mounted C: drive folder, to hold the FreeDOS Edit files. In my case I created a DOS folder, so I ended up with: D:\Games\Dos\Falcon Gold\hdd\DOS.
Extract the FreeDOS Edit zip archive to this folder. It should now contain edit.exe and edit.hlp.
DOSBox Staging config changes
If you try and run the editor from a folder in which it doesn't exist, it will fail to run. e.g. If you go the Falcon folder and try and open one of readme files with the editor, it will fail as the editor is in the DOS folder not the Falcon folder.
To resolve this issue, the DOSBox path environment variable is extended to search for files (including the editor) in the new DOS folder. Below is a DOSBox Staging config fragment showing the required path change in the [autoexec] section:
[autoexec]
mount c "D:\Games\Dos\Falcon Gold\hdd"
imgmount d "D:\Games\Dos\Falcon Gold\cd\FalconGold.iso"
set path=%path%;c:\dos
c:
cd falconcd
call darkmenu.batGFU Menu config change
The final step is to change the GFU Menu config to use FreeDOS Edit (edit.exe) rather than the default DOS Edit (edit.com).
Open GFU Menu.
Go to the 'Config' menu.
Select the 'Edit Configuration File' option.
On the 'Edit Configuration File' page change the 'Ascii Text Editor' field to EDIT.EXE (as shown in the screenshot).
Exit and save.
Running GFU Menu
Once setup is complete running the GFU Menu is straightforward. Simply get to the DOSBox DOS prompt and from the C: drive top level folder, use the following commands:
C:\> cd gfu
C:\GFU> gfu
So that should be the Gold Falcon Utilities fully working under DOSBox Staging. They provide a lot of additional help and info when running campaigns, a very useful addition for any Falcon fans!
Good campaigning!
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