Started with FS98. Lived in Seattle at the time and had a friend at MS who was able to get me in as a beta tester for FS2000. Beta tested ProPilot if you can remember that. I’ve been using FS2004 forever and with the new PC I bought for FS 2020, FS9 has never looked better running it at ultra everything. Some of the clouds I use look better than 2020’s. Still learning FS2020. Beautiful sim but it’s a different monster. However with time I think it will become my main sim.
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At least you had a floppy disc. It took a while to load the subLogic flight sim from cassette.
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Flight simulator was the first computer game that I had ever played. I was 16 years old when my parents bought me an Apple IIC in 1984 and of course a copy of SubLogic Flight Simulator. I remember being amazed that they were able to stimulate an airplane with all of the six pack of gauges and the nav radios. I remember Meigs field (since has sadly been torn down by the mayor many years ago) was the default airport and I remember flying my very first ILS back then. I wish I still had that computer, it would be fun to fly it again.
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Yep, Flight Simulator 2.0 (or 2.10?) on an IBM PC Jr., 8 1/2 inch floppy disk. Refresh rate was maybe 2 fps! The joysticks for the PCJr were not bad…IIRC, you could turn the elevator centering spring on or off. (or maybe this enterprising young engineer-to-be actually removed the springs?) I have fond memories of the default startup airport, Meigs Field, right by Lake Michigan in Chicago. Sadly, this airport no longer exists. I think I had FS98 and some other version prior.
My first was Flight Simulator for the ZX-81 (then Timex/Sinclair ZX-81). I still to this day have that computer and the flight sim cassette. All I need is a small black and white tv and a cassette player and I’m good to go!
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Who remembers the early days of multiplayer. Man that was an awesome up and coming feature.
Started with FS1 or 2 in the mid 80’s on an IBM PC-AT 80286@8mhz green screen at work then on an 80386/20mhz laptop at home with my first £5 joystick. Downloading addons (like the 747 panel) from Bulletin Boards (Ahhhh, good old BBS systems! Made some lifelong friends on those) with a 14.4k modem which took forever. Then every FS version since then except 2004 which really only added pretty clouds over my heavily modded FS2002 with which I discovered Vatsim 16 years ago . Onto FSX which has been bullet proof and is still running now for big-tin IFR on Vatsim (VFR on MSFS). MSFS has saved me from having to go P3D!
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My favorite is 2004 Century of Flight.
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My first flightsim machine was an Electron 32K, was just a white line(the horizon) on a black screen. There were a couple of boxes with hdg, speed and altitude representations and airfields were just blue rectangles. I thought it was marvellous at the time. Then I remember a flightsim where you flew the aircraft from the outside only but it was in colour and I had all the flightsims after that using the Spectrum and an Amiga before getting my first PC.
FS4 is the one I started with. I bought an Atari ST to play it.
I remember hours of following VOR radials in the middle of nowhere, sometimes ending with a crash beacause I was below the minimal altitude (but it was impossible to guess, since the ground was just a green solid rectangle).
If you want to try… (simflight.com)
(Sorry for the unecessary “reply to post”. I always mix with “reply to topic” and I can’t edit).
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Mine also on the larger Sinclair Spectrum with 48 Kb of RAM!
I think i’ve played at least 80 percent of all released sims from 1984 till now…
I even have a lot of boxed versions like the ones from Microprose and other publishers.
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I had pro pilot.
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A2FS1 on the Apple ][ - 48K of RAM! Shortly after learned to fly instruments on A2FS2. Meigs to Greater Kankakee!
ZX81 Flight sim was my starting point, No idea why my dad got it for me, I was 8!
A long road of sims over many platforms has followed, I have especially fond memories of the old Microprose games, Flying Fortress especially
Sid Meiers ‘Solo Flight’ on my (i think) Atari 800.
I first used Flight Simulator on the Computer in the Control room of MSV Stadive, a dive support ship in the North sea. Not sure exactly when but must have been in the 80s. That 80s version was very very basic.
Later used several versions including a version where one could fly out of that Chicago Miegs airport so I was VERY SAD when dicovered tht Miegs is no more (just a lake and park) and VERY VERY happy when I discovered that someone has done a free add on to bring it back.
Rebuilt my PC specially to be able to run this new version although I could not quite afford to straight away go for a spec that quite meets the recomended spec. (Only an AMD Rysen 5 3400G and no separate GPU and 16GB RAM). However it works fine.
A2FS1 - Sublogic - Bruce Artwick on a Apple II (integer basic).
FS2 for me, really enjoyed Sublogic ATP and Pro Pilot, FS9 until now only MS Flight sim I could run maxed out.
Oh yes, me too. I can’t remember all of them but there was a lot various Sim’s.
Starting mid 80’s on a C64 with FS2 and then consistently a lot… til FS2020.
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