Ferrari Formula One

Released: 1989
Published by: Electronic Arts
Developed by: Imagitec Design, Inc.
Author(s): Rick Koenig, Hugh David, Lee Garnett, Michael Kosaka, Nigel Cook, Connie Goldman, Adrian Ludley, Michael Hanrahan, Stephanie Walters, David Chiles, Barry Leitch

Introduction

Fully sponsored by Scuderia Ferrari, Electronic Arts' game was ported to the DOS platform in 1989, having been released on the Amiga and Atari ST the year before. A Commodore 64 version followed in 1990.

Ferrari Formula One is a racing simulation with a decent amount of gameplay. Not only do you get to practice, quality and race the full 1986 season of 16 tracks, but the game also involves you in setting and testing your car's aerodynamics and engine. This takes place back at the Ferrari headquarters and test track at Fiorano, Italy. The various stages of preparing your car for each main race are time-constrained, just like in real life. For example, it may take 45 minutes to replace your car's engine if you blow it during practice, and if there is insufficient game time remaining before the race starts, it won't allow you to fit it. This adds a further dimension to the game which is great!

For each race there are two practice sessions followed by two qualifying sessions and in each of these you can adjust your car's settings. If you're not sure what a good car setup is, the game has a built-in crew chief called Mauro, who you can call up to see his recommendations. The four pre-race sessions are followed by the race itself. As you would expect, your starting position in the race is determined by your best lap time during the two qualifiers.

The game is difficult to master but this is by design - as Rich Hilleman, Associate Producer at Electronic Arts said back in 1988, it is a grand prix simulation as opposed to a racing game.

Sadly, the game is let down by poor sound support on the DOS version, only using the PC speaker.

 

 

System Requirements

System Requirements	Intel 8088/8086, 512 KB RAM, DOS 3.2 or later. Graphics support for Hercules, Tandy/PCjr, CGA and EGA. Audio support for PC speaker only. Keyboard and Mouse supported. Joystick recommended.
Original Media	Two 5.25" 360 KB (DS/DD) floppy disks or one 3.5" 720 KB (DS/DD) floppy disk
Installed Size (MB)	627 KB

From where can it be run?

The game can be installed to hard disk or run from the floppy disk(s). There are a few versions of the game, one that has a basic INSTALL.BAT batch file that takes you through the install process, or an INSTALL.EXE that does the same.

 

Copy Protection

Ferrari Formula One has manual copy protection. After your first practice session you will be prompted to enter the length of a track in miles or kilometres, or the country the circuit resides in. Each of the 16 tracks is shown at the bottom of the manual's pages along with their length:

You have 3 attempts to get it right before being taken back to the DOS prompt:

There are versions of the game online that you can download that are cracked.

 

How to Setup

Insert the first disk (the "Game Disk") and run INSTALL.EXE:

1) Select the type of installation:

2) For Hard disk (or RAM disk) installation, you must choose a drive letter for the source of the files. The game expects to find all files in the root directory, otherwise an error will be shown. If you have all the files from the original disk(s) in a directory on your hard disk, you can use the DOS command 'subst' to create a dummy drive letter that points to that directory, then use that dummy drive letter as the source:

3) Choose the destination drive:

4) and the directory into which the game will be installed:

5) The game files will then be copied:

6) Installation complete:

To run the game you can execute FF1.BAT, which will use the auto-detected graphics mode, but alternatively you can run F.EXE (or in some versions of the game the file is called F1.COM) with one of these command-line options:

F 1 (Run the game in CGA 4-colour mode)
F 2 (Run the game in EGA 16-colour mode)
F 3 (Run the game in Hercules monochrome mode)
F 4 (Run the game in Tandy mode)

In the main paddock screen, you can press F10 to bring up the game setup menu. This allows you to enable keyboard control for driving, sound setting (0, 1 or 2), grass on/off, or return to DOS.

 

Problems

Symptom: ?
Cause: ?
Resolution: ?

To Quit the Game

Hit F10 from the paddock to bring up the game settings menu, then use the arrow keys to highlight 'RETURN TO DOS' and hit ENTER twice.

At least one cracked version of the game allows you to get back to the DOS prompt by holding down the left Ctrl key and hitting the numeric keypad '+' key.

 

Supporting Documents

• Game Manual (PDF)

 

Save Games

Ferrari Formula One allows you to save your progress through a season to disk, or load a season from a disk.

 

Versions of the game known to exist

Version	Date	Comments
1.0	July 1989	Initial public release.

Original Floppy Disk Contents

The floppy disks have no specific volume label. Here are each disk's contents:

Disk 1 of 2 ("Main Disk", 5.25" 360 KB DS/DD):   Directory of A:\ F EXE 141,219 08-23-89 9:30a INSTALL BAT 3,493 08-22-89 2:41p BOX C_C 4,312 07-17-89 11:29a DYNOROOM C_C 3,544 07-17-89 11:31a GARAGE C_C 5,080 07-17-89 11:31a PADE C_C 3,448 07-17-89 11:30a PADF C_C 3,910 07-17-89 11:30a TITLE C_C 6,120 07-17-89 11:29a TROPHY C_C 4,594 07-17-89 11:32a TUNNEL C_C 2,962 07-17-89 11:32a XPORT C_C 3,188 07-17-89 11:33a BOX C_E 12,652 07-17-89 11:35a DYNOROOM C_E 7,602 07-17-89 11:41a GARAGE C_E 12,656 07-17-89 11:40a PADE C_E 7,318 07-17-89 11:37a PADF C_E 10,158 07-17-89 11:39a PADO C_E 14,124 07-17-89 11:38a TITLE C_E 20,804 07-17-89 11:34a TROPHY C_E 9,626 07-17-89 11:44a TUNNEL C_E 6,588 07-17-89 11:43a XPORT C_E 6,776 07-17-89 11:46a MENUS MNU 5,929 07-10-89 11:57a ALL DAT 4,918 07-10-89 11:57a ADELAIDE TRK 937 07-13-89 2:51p BUDAPEST TRK 963 07-13-89 2:51p DETROIT TRK 982 07-13-89 2:51p ESTORIL TRK 812 07-13-89 2:52p FIORANO TRK 878 07-13-89 2:52p HATCH TRK 915 07-13-89 2:52p HOCKENHE TRK 1,481 07-13-89 2:52p IMOLA TRK 1,161 07-13-89 2:52p JEREZ TRK 984 07-13-89 2:52p MEXICO TRK 830 07-13-89 2:53p MONACO TRK 1,009 07-13-89 2:53p MONTREAL TRK 1,104 07-13-89 2:53p MONZA TRK 867 07-13-89 2:53p OSTERREI TRK 1,174 07-13-89 2:53p RICARD TRK 909 07-13-89 2:53p RIO TRK 884 07-13-89 2:53p SPA TRK 1,491 07-13-89 2:53p 1986 SES 3,666 08-14-89 11:22p FF1 BAT 339 08-22-89 3:54p 42 file(s) 322,407 bytes 23,552 bytes free
Disk 2 of 2 ("Race Disk", 5.25" 360 KB DS/DD):   Directory of A:\ ADELAIDE TKB 12,985 07-13-89 2:51p BUDAPEST TKB 13,844 07-13-89 2:51p DETROIT TKB 16,912 07-13-89 2:51p ESTORIL TKB 14,084 07-13-89 2:52p FIORANO TKB 16,392 07-13-89 2:52p HATCH TKB 18,854 07-13-89 2:52p HOCKENHE TKB 15,451 07-13-89 2:52p IMOLA TKB 17,301 07-13-89 2:52p JEREZ TKB 12,035 07-13-89 2:52p MEXICO TKB 15,743 07-13-89 2:53p MONACO TKB 17,926 07-13-89 2:53p MONTREAL TKB 16,642 07-13-89 2:53p MONZA TKB 17,852 07-13-89 2:53p OSTERREI TKB 18,469 07-13-89 2:53p RICARD TKB 17,078 07-13-89 2:53p RIO TKB 16,538 07-13-89 2:53p SPA TKB 16,347 07-13-89 2:53p ALL EGA 18,724 07-10-89 11:57a ALL CGA 12,167 07-10-89 11:57a OCARS FF1 15,528 06-19-89 1:20p INSTALL BAT 3,493 08-22-89 2:41p 21 file(s) 324,365 bytes 26,624 bytes free
Disk 1 of 1 (3.5" 720 KB DS/DD):   Directory of A:\ FF1 IEA 7,100 08-21-89 9:05p FF11 279,269 07-18-90 11:21a FF12 285,546 07-18-90 8:22a INSTALL EXE 39,771 08-16-89 4:02p 4 file(s) 611,686 bytes 117,760 bytes free

 

Installed Directory Contents

Once installed, the following directory structure exists in the game directory:

Hard disk installation chosen at time of install.   Directory of C:\FERRARI\ F EXE 141,207 08-24-89 11:29a BOX C_C 4,312 07-17-89 11:29a DYNOROOM C_C 3,544 07-17-89 11:31a GARAGE C_C 5,080 07-17-89 11:31a PADE C_C 3,448 07-17-89 11:30a PADF C_C 3,910 07-17-89 11:30a TITLE C_C 6,120 07-17-89 11:29a TROPHY C_C 4,594 07-17-89 11:32a TUNNEL C_C 2,962 07-17-89 11:32a XPORT C_C 3,188 07-17-89 11:33a BOX C_E 12,652 07-17-89 11:35a DYNOROOM C_E 7,602 07-17-89 11:41a GARAGE C_E 12,656 07-17-89 11:40a PADE C_E 7,318 07-17-89 11:37a PADF C_E 10,158 07-17-89 11:39a PADO C_E 14,124 07-17-89 11:38a TITLE C_E 20,804 07-17-89 11:34a TROPHY C_E 9,626 07-17-89 11:44a TUNNEL C_E 6,588 07-17-89 11:43a XPORT C_E 6,776 07-17-89 11:46a MENUS MNU 5,929 07-10-89 11:57a ALL DAT 4,918 07-10-89 11:57a ADELAIDE TRK 937 07-13-89 2:51p BUDAPEST TRK 963 07-13-89 2:51p DETROIT TRK 982 07-13-89 2:51p ESTORIL TRK 812 07-13-89 2:52p FIORANO TRK 878 07-13-89 2:52p HATCH TRK 915 07-13-89 2:52p HOCKENHE TRK 1,481 07-13-89 2:52p IMOLA TRK 1,161 07-13-89 2:52p JEREZ TRK 984 07-13-89 2:52p MEXICO TRK 830 07-13-89 2:53p MONACO TRK 1,009 07-13-89 2:53p MONTREAL TRK 1,104 07-13-89 2:53p MONZA TRK 867 07-13-89 2:53p OSTERREI TRK 1,174 07-13-89 2:53p RICARD TRK 909 07-13-89 2:53p RIO TRK 884 07-13-89 2:53p SPA TRK 1,491 07-13-89 2:53p 1986 SES 3,666 08-14-89 11:22p MAKEBOOT EXE 2,844 08-01-89 2:27p FF1 BAT 6 11-09-22 4:14p ADELAIDE TKB 12,985 07-13-89 2:51p BUDAPEST TKB 13,844 07-13-89 2:51p DETROIT TKB 16,912 07-13-89 2:51p ESTORIL TKB 14,084 07-13-89 2:52p FIORANO TKB 16,392 07-13-89 2:52p HATCH TKB 18,854 07-13-89 2:52p HOCKENHE TKB 15,451 07-13-89 2:52p IMOLA TKB 17,301 07-13-89 2:52p JEREZ TKB 12,035 07-13-89 2:52p MEXICO TKB 15,743 07-13-89 2:53p MONACO TKB 17,926 07-13-89 2:53p MONTREAL TKB 16,642 07-13-89 2:53p MONZA TKB 17,852 07-13-89 2:53p OSTERREI TKB 18,469 07-13-89 2:53p RICARD TKB 17,078 07-13-89 2:53p RIO TKB 16,538 07-13-89 2:53p SPA TKB 16,347 07-13-89 2:53p ALL EGA 18,724 07-10-89 11:57a ALL CGA 12,167 07-10-89 11:57a OCARS FF1 15,528 06-19-89 1:20p 64 file(s) 642,285 bytes

 

Game Review

Ferrari Formula One is a racing simulation with a decent amount of gameplay. Not only do you get to practice, qualify and race the full 1986 season of 16 tracks, but the game also involves you in the setting up and testing of your car's aerodynamics and engine. This takes place back at the Ferrari headquarters and test track at Fiorano, Italy. The various stages of preparing your car for each main race are time-constrained, just like in real life. For example, it may take 45 minutes to replace your car's engine if you blow it during practice, and if there is insufficient game time remaining before the race starts, it won't allow you to fit it. This adds a further dimension to the game which is great!

For each race there are two practice sessions followed by two qualifying sessions and in each of these you can adjust your car's settings. If you're not sure what a good car setup is, the game has a built-in crew chief called Mauro, who you can call up for his recommendations. The four pre-race sessions are followed by the race itself. As you would expect, your starting position in the race is determined by your best lap time during the two qualifiers.

Ferrari Formula One is probably the first true Formula One racing simulation, much more than the arcade-like Grand Prix Circuit. The game is difficult to master but this is by design - as Rich Hilleman, Associate Producer at Electronic Arts said back in 1988, it is a grand prix simulation as opposed to a racing game. Does this make it a better game? That depends on what you're looking for - the added complexity and steeper learning curve might make it less 'fun' for some, but if you want a more immersive Grand Prix racing experience, Ferrari Formula One checked the boxes better than anything that came before it.

What a shame such a well-rounded game is let down by two key things: the weird design choice of having a moving cockpit when you corner, and terrible sound. These alone make Ferrari Formula One a painful experience to play, enough to mark it down.