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History Of Flight Simulator

gray eagle

gray eagle

SOH-CM-2025
My My My, with the release of P3D V4, I harken back to the good ole days when the sim had just on aircraft and was just a simple game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Flight_Simulator


Sublogic_Flight_Simulator_II.png

A screenshot from Flight Simulator II, showing the southern end of Meigs Field in Chicago.

Msfs1.00_000.png

FS 1.0 – This image is of FS 1.0 displaying color on a composite monitor.[7] The game does have support for RGB monitors, but in monochrome only.

Flight_Simulator_2.13_-_Meigs.png


FS 2.0 – Scenery coverage includes the entire United States.
 

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I used to program for Bruce Artwick on the very first flight simulator before Microsoft bought it and moved to MicroProse flight simulators...am I really that old???????
Ted
 
txnetcop said:
I used to program for Bruce Artwick on the very first flight simulator before Microsoft bought it and moved to MicroProse flight simulators...am I really that old???????
Ted
Click to expand...

Wow! I guess we are aging :biggrin-new:

I still have the instruction manual for the 1st one by Bruce Artwick. Those were the days......:pop4:
 
txnetcop said:
I used to program for Bruce Artwick on the very first flight simulator before Microsoft bought it and moved to MicroProse flight simulators...am I really that old???????
Ted
Click to expand...
Those were the days when sims came out every few months it seemed and fitted on a couple of floppies. Loved F-15 Strike Eagle from Microprose. Didn't come to MSFS until v 5.1 though I did have the Psion FS (on cassette tape) on a Sinclair Spectrum 48k which must have been based on FS 1 or 2, it consisted of only night flying (black screen) and I remember a triangle which seemed to be a mountain in the distance. Happy days. Simple but immersive. :jump:
 
Needless to say I had every MicroProse product made and one of my favorites was Silent Service which I had a hand in programming and QCing... I had soooooooo much fun in those days. I also freelanced with Spectrum Holobyte with GATO which helped when we were doing Silent Service. I worked with a great bunch of guys and gals. I was doing what Sandra Bullock portrayed in The Net 10 years later. All the gamer program houses were pretty much connected and offering advice and consulting.
Ted
 
txnetcop said:
I used to program for Bruce Artwick on the very first flight simulator before Microsoft bought it and moved to MicroProse flight simulators...am I really that old???????
Ted
Click to expand...

Yes Ted , some of us are really getting that old (the big 70 in a few months):encouragement: , I kept the first PC I ever bought . If memory serves me right it had a whopping 80 mb HD .I forget what the processor was.I had FS3 loaded on it !

Rich
 
Hello All,

I also still have pieces of the first PC I ever owned. I had the whole working computer until my wife decided to throw out some of the pieces. Anyone know where I can get a CGA monitor? or the IBM Graphics Printer?
It was an old 5 slot PC with 2 x 360K floppies back when the XT would cost $1000 more for a 10 MB hard drive.

Its predecessor was a Timex Sinclair which didn't really deserve the title of "PC", but I did get a flight simulator for it.

After that came SubLogic Jet, Yeager's Air Combat, Flight Simulator 98 and Combat Flight Simulator in all three versions, IL2, Jane's, etc.
There were at least a dozen more games in that mix (all on floppies of course) but I can't remember what they were.

- Ivan.
 
I've kept a running list of all the flight sims I've flown since getting into the hobby. I had my first ever computer built for me, specifically so I could fly. Owned my copy of TFX and Thrustmaster MKI for a couple of days before the system actually arrived.

I've never typo'd the list so there may be some title errors. They should be in pretty close chronological order.

1. Strike Eagle
2. Pilot Wings
3. TFX
4. Fleet Defender
5. Falcon3.0 Gold
6. Red Baron
7. Aces Over Europe
8. Aces Over The Pacific
9. Wings Of Glory
10. US Navy Fighters (Origins of the 257th Wild Bunch Sqd.)
11. US Marine Fighters
12. Jane’s Advanced Tactical Fighters
13. Jane’s NATO Fighters
14. SU-27 Flanker
15. Jane's Longbow
16. Jane's Longbow II
17. Jane's Israeli Air Force
18. Jane's F-15 (Behind the scenes beta pilot)
19. Jane's WW II Fighters
20. A-10 Cuba (1996)
21. Flight Unlimited II
22. MSFS 5.0
23. MSFS 5.1
24. MSFS 98
25. Falcon4
26. Flying Corps Gold
27. EF2000
28. Pacific Air Wars
29. Red Baron II
30. Fly!
31. Flanker 2.0
32. Apache
33. Jane's F/A-18
34. Mig Alley
35. B-17 II
36. Apache vs Havoc
37. Comanche vs Hokum
38. Eurofighter Typhoon
39. IL-2 Sturmovik
40. MSFS 2002 Pro
41. Falcon4 RP1 (NDA beta tester)
42. Flanker 2.5
43. Falcon4 SP2
44. Falcon4 SP3
45. MS Combat Simulator 3
46. Strike Fighters / Project 1
47. IL-2 Sturmovik Forgotten Battles
48. Extreme Air Racing
49. Falcon4 RP5
50. MSFS 2004 Century Of Flight
51. LOMAC
52. Falcon4 SP4
53. IL-2 Aces Expansion Pack
54. Pacific Fighters
55. Falcon4.0 Allied Force
56. Battle of Britain II Wings of Victory
57. WOP Fire Power
58. Wings Over Vietnam
59. Wings Over Europe
60. MS FSX
61. First Eagles
62. First Eagles 2
63. Rise Of Flight
64. MS Flight


FAC257
 
My start was 1993-4? I went to a county dump off and reuse day to drop off some tube lights and other ejecta. Wandering over to the reuse area someone was unloading a complete computer (old beige) and when I asked about it he said it even had FS on it. Never having a computer I scooped it up and fired up the game that night. That beige and light blue scenery never looked better, even tried landing on the white stripe of an aircraft carrier too.
 
Does anyone here remember the size of the computer on the first A-6s? I heard it was in the kb range.
 
txnetcop said:
Needless to say I had every MicroProse product made and one of my favorites was Silent Service which I had a hand in programming and QCing... I had soooooooo much fun in those days. I also freelanced with Spectrum Holobyte with GATO which helped when we were doing Silent Service. I worked with a great bunch of guys and gals. I was doing what Sandra Bullock portrayed in The Net 10 years later. All the gamer program houses were pretty much connected and offering advice and consulting.
Ted
Click to expand...

I was a big Micropose fan back in my Commodore 64 days. Pirates! was my favorite. Although the Apache on came close behind.
 
As long as we are talking about our 1st computers, this one was my first and favorite.


__57.jpg


And my favorite game on it:


 
That was my first and I taught myself to program basic, turbo basic, and pascal on it...but favorite to game on was my Commodore 64!
Ted
 
txnetcop said:
That was my first and I taught myself to program basic, turbo basic, and pascal on it...but favorite to game on was my Commodore 64!
Ted
Click to expand...

Had to use an IBM computer to learn Assembly Language and BASIC. Later on at work... UNIX. I still have my programming books.


Later on servicing Mac's (corporate office), Intel based 286 and 386 computers. One special computer used for training had touch screen with cd disc cartridge player (1980's vintage). Very cool for it's time and now look at all the touch screen devices we have today!
 
Willy said:
I was a big Micropose fan back in my Commodore 64 days. Pirates! was my favorite. Although the Apache on came close behind.
Click to expand...

Pirates was an amazing game. I spent many, many hours on that, on my cousins Commodore 64. I had an Amstrad myself (well my brother and sister and I shared one). Green screen, tape deck and all.


cpcgreen.jpg




maxresdefault.jpg



The second pic shows a different model to mine, but the game on the screen "Green Berets" brings back a lot of memories. Now they're all flooding back; Operation Wolf, R-Type...... Good times :biggrin-new:.
 
My friends dad worked for Big Blue in the U.K. and he had a PC with this on it. My very first simulated flight was on that computer - let me see - 30 years ago. Yikes!

Wait, I lie. I had a mate who's parents were loaded and bought him everything. My very first simulated flight would have been this:





on this:



and that was 36 years ago. Double Yikes!!!
 
SSI01 said:
Does anyone here remember the size of the computer on the first A-6s? I heard it was in the kb range.
Click to expand...

Very first computer was this. Sinclair ZX81

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10

RUN

Loved it! Got me going.



Didn't have a flight sim on it as far as I can remember.
The first PC running windows (3.1) I owned was a cast off from my dad's office. It was an Elonex with a 486 Chip, 12 Mb RAM and a 40 MB hard drive.
I upgraded it to a DX66 chip and a bigger hard drive; 80Mb :jump: I ran FS5.0 on it.

I used to play the Solitaire card game on it to get to the end when the cards all fly away to demonstrate to your friends the blistering speed of the CPU :biggrin-new:

I guess we've come a long way...


 
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