So, what exactly was Origin FX?

Vinman

Vice Admiral
I always thought it was just a screensaver, but the way the Point of Origin docs talk about it, it seems like a lot more? Was it a screensaver or something else? Was it a hit or a miss? Was it even released? Does anyone know anything about Origin FX?
 
Heh - yeah, reading the Point of Origins makes it seem like Origin FX was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's hard to fathom now, but there was a period in the early 1990s when screensavers were really, really popular... and that's what Origin FX was, a screensaver package for Windows 3 along the lines of After Dark. It was a mix of Origin-based and original-concept modules, and it included quite a few scenarios and options to play with.

OFX's lasting contribution to Wing Commander continuity is a single paragraph in the manual which describes the "TCS Paradigm" module - involving the Confederation's flagship chasing down pirates in 2664.

I have the manual which lists all the modules at home, but these are most of the Wing Commander ones:

- TCS Paradigm: a Paradigm destroyer flies back and forth in front of several different backgrounds.

- A debris field made up of Wing Commander bits and pieces - asteroids, destroyed ships, mines, etc.

- Fighters from Wing Commander 2, Privateer and Strike Commander fly around your screen.

It also promised to play movies from games based on 'Origin FX technology' - which meant Wing Commander 2 and Strike Commander. If you had both the games and Windows and Origin FX on your computer (did anyone actually manage this in 1993?) then the program would play the 'movies' with a little theater backdrop -- which meant Blair kissing Angel, Angel slapping Jazz and maybe one or two others.

I don't remember too many of the other modules. There was one that filled the screen with animals from Ultima VII... and one that was skyscrapers with a window washer who cleaned them... and one or two that shifted your screen around with weird effects. There was a slideshow, too, that came with a few (then) high quality BMPs pre-loaded... two or so were from Privateer.
 
If anyone knows anything about emulating Windows 3 and its crazy color pallette then please fill me in - I'd love to play around with OFX again.
 
Windows 3 was pretty flexible and self-contained. If you stuck a copy of it in a directory, you could run it like a normal program, so I think it should work in DOSBox.
 
It's odd about modern graphics cards, though - I can't even run a bunch of Windows 3 applications on the Wing Commander Computer (Origin FX included.)
 
Tried Virtual PC? Ive got debian and win98 running in it, it emulates a really old graphics card than win3.1 should like.
 
Windows 3 was pretty flexible and self-contained. If you stuck a copy of it in a directory, you could run it like a normal program, so I think it should work in DOSBox.

Dead serious? I'd rather get DOS running on a modern PC (true DOS, not just DOSbox, which has many advantages over regular DOS but not everything I'd like) or even win98 (starlancer, mechwarrior3...), but Win3 would be interesting to mess with again.
 
Windows 3 was pretty flexible and self-contained. If you stuck a copy of it in a directory, you could run it like a normal program, so I think it should work in DOSBox.

And it does! Requires a 256 color driver, and DOSBox version 0.7x for mouse support, but otherwise it runs really well.



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Steltek Drone flying around your screen:
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Talon:
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Orion:
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Origin logo with The Guardian from Ultima.
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Kilrathi & Confed ship parts, asteroids, mines, chaff pods, etc.
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The TCS Paradigm!
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Without the proper 256 color mode, the modules look like this:
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Paradigm in the asteroid field from Privateer. You can select the size and speed.
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Theater for playing Wing Commander 2 movies. The game only ships with the Hha'ifra, Thrakhath's escape pod and the WC2 logo, but if you have WC2 installed, it'll also pull short animations from the game. Pretty much every takeoff/landing is there, plus a handful of miscellaneous ones. There are three theaters (one from Ultima).
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And the Quote of the Day module.
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And it does! Requires a 256 color driver, and DOSBox version 0.7x for mouse support, but otherwise it runs really well.
That's pretty cool. I never got to see Origin FX in action back in the day.
 
Steltek Drone flying around your screen:

I think that's actually the Steltek Scout.

Check to see if the music works - I think I remember that being a problem, too...
 
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