# Tesla Release 4.10 — Tesla:BattleTech & Tesla:Red Planet

Source code and game content for **Tesla:BattleTech** and **Tesla:Red Planet**, the
two games that ran on the **Tesla**-generation simulator cockpits built by
**Virtual World Entertainment, Inc.** (VWE). Source file headers are dated
1994–1996; this tree corresponds to release 4.10 of the Tesla software.

This repository is an archival snapshot. The tree is preserved byte-for-byte as
found (see `.gitattributes` — no line-ending conversion is applied).

See [emulator/PLAN.md](emulator/PLAN.md) for the implementation plan to run
these games on the surviving cockpits' Windows 10 computers via a VPX-board
HLE device in DOSBox-X, with the cockpit RIO (COM1) and plasma display (COM2)
passed through to the game's original drivers.

See [HISTORY.md](HISTORY.md) for findings from a recovered VWE developer hard
drive that accompanies this tree (excluded from the repo), including Division
renderer source, runnable game builds, unreleased prototypes (Star Trek,
Hull Pressure, Renegade Legion, and the Starship Troopers pitch that became
DisneyQuest's "Invasion!"), and an analysis of whether these games can be
rebuilt from the sources in this repository (summary: the engine can, the
games cannot — most game-logic sources are absent from this cut).

## Target hardware

Each Tesla cockpit was driven by a server-class **Pentium Pro** machine running
**Novell DOS**. Graphics were split across two adapters:

- The **main (out-the-window) display** was rendered by one of the first
  pixel-pipeline 3D accelerator cards ever made, driven through **Division Ltd.'s
  dVS/DPL libraries** (`libDPL` — DPL, dsys, dvs, and the VPX headers; Division
  copyright 1995).
- An **S3 video adapter** drove the other **six cockpit displays** (instrument
  and gauge screens — see the `GAUGE` content directories and the `PCPIC.INC` /
  `L4GAU*` gauge code).

Other hardware/OS interfaces:

- **Audio:** HMI **SOS** (Sound Operating System) — `sos/` libraries, with
  variants for Borland (`bc4`) and Watcom (`wc`).
- **Networking:** pods were networked over Ethernet using **WATTCP** (DOS
  TCP/IP, with BOOTP) via VWE's **NetNub** layer.
- **Input:** joystick/pedal/panel I/O in assembly (`JOYSTICK.ASM`) and the
  `L4CTRL*` control modules.

## Toolchain

- **Borland C++ 5.0** (`BCC`) with **TASM32** for assembly — see the `.MAK`
  makefiles (original build tree lived at `D:\TESLA_RP\` and `D:\BC5\`).
- Precompiled-header discipline throughout (`.CSM` headers, `#pragma hdrstop`).
- `VSSVER.SCC` / `MSSCCPRJ.SCC` files are remnants of the original **Visual
  SourceSafe** source control.
- File extensions: `.CPP/.HPP` C++ source/headers, `.TCP/.THP` C++ template
  source/headers, `.MAK` Borland makefiles.

## Repository layout

```
ARTTOOLS/   (empty placeholder — art tools were not included in this snapshot)
BORLAND/    (empty placeholder — compiler was not included in this snapshot)
CODE/       Game and engine source (~200k lines of C++/asm)
CONTENT/    Game data: models, animations, audio, maps, textures, gauges
HEADOFF/    Head/camera offset calibration configs for the cockpit displays
```

### CODE/

Both games share the same architecture: a portable simulation engine
(**MUNGA**, VWE's in-house engine) plus a hardware layer (**MUNGA_L4**, the
"L4" Tesla pod platform layer), with game-specific code and a game-specific
L4 layer on top.

```
CODE/BT/                Tesla:BattleTech
  BT/                   Game logic: mechs, weapons (PPC, Gauss, missiles),
                        damage tables, teams, missions, scenario rules
  BT_L4/                BattleTech pod application layer (app modes, arena,
                        radar, playback, version)
  MUNGA/                Engine bricks: math (matrices, angles, splines),
                        containers, file streams, audio manager, events
  MUNGA_L4/             Pod hardware layer: video renderer manager, keyboard,
                        mouse, audio hardware, warehouse (resource loading)
    LIBDPL/             Division Ltd. dVS/DPL graphics library (headers +
                        LIBDPL.LIB + VREND*.BTL renderer modules)
    NETNUB/             WATTCP-based pod networking (headers + WATTCPLG.LIB)
    SOS/                HMI Sound Operating System libraries + drivers

CODE/RP/                Tesla:Red Planet (same structure)
  RP/                   Game logic: VTV (hover racer) power/subsystems,
                        pickups (booster, blocker, crusher, thruster)
  RP_L4/                Red Planet pod application layer
  MUNGA/                Engine (fullest copy — 351 files incl. all .CPP)
  MUNGA_L4/             Pod hardware layer (fullest copy, incl. JOYSTICK.ASM)
    libDPL/, NetNub/, sos/   as above
  */opt/                Compiled Borland C++ 5.0 object files from the
                        original build (preserved as found)
```

Note: the BT copies of MUNGA/MUNGA_L4 are partial (69/68 files) while the RP
copies are complete (351/231 files) — the BT tree appears to hold only the
files that diverged from the shared engine.

### CONTENT/

```
CONTENT/BT/             Tesla:BattleTech content
CONTENT/BT3025/         Parallel BattleTech content set (3025-era variant;
                        mostly identical to BT/ with a different mech roster)
CONTENT/RP/             Tesla:Red Planet content
```

Per-game content directories:

| Dir      | Contents |
|----------|----------|
| `MODELS` | `.MOD/.SUB/.DMG/.TBL` — vehicle/mech models, subsystems, damage tables |
| `ANIMS`  | `.ANI` — animations (BT only) |
| `AUDIO`  | `.MID` MIDI music, `.SCP` audio scripts, `.BNK/.BLD` banks |
| `GAUGE`  | `.GIM` — gauge images for the six S3-driven cockpit displays |
| `MAPS`   | `.MAP/.ZNE` — arena/terrain maps and zones |
| `SOLIDS` | `.SLD` — collision solids |
| `VIDEO`  | Division renderer data: `GEO/` geometry, `MAT/` materials, and `TEX/` textures per environment (ARENA, DAY, NIGHT, DESERT, POLAR, CAVERN, …), `.DZM` skins, `.BMF/.BGF` binary geometry, `BUILD/` sources |
| `SCENES` | Scene definitions (RP only) |
| `BTCAM`  | Camera batch setups (BT only) |

`DIVISION.SAV` subdirectories inside `VIDEO/` are backup saves written by
Division's tools. `MTMCDAI.SYS` (Mitsumi) and `TAISATAP.SYS` are DOS CD-ROM
device drivers used on the pod machines.

### HEADOFF/

INI-style calibration files (`.XST/.CAM/.BAK`) defining viewing extents and
camera offsets ("head offset") for the cockpit's main display, including a
`[LAB_ONLY]` configuration.

## Provenance

- Copyright (C) 1994–1996 Virtual World Entertainment, Inc. All rights
  reserved worldwide. Original headers mark the source as proprietary and
  confidential.
- Third-party components retain their own copyrights: Division Ltd. (dVS/DPL),
  Human Machine Interfaces (SOS), Erick Engelke / University of Waterloo
  (WATTCP).
