For you oldies who remember CGA and EGA

I played F18 on ZX Spectrum:)

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You haven’t lived until you programmed Fortran, (which used lots of special characters), on an IBM 026 keypunch - where 99% of the special characters were NOT on the keyboard!  You had to use the “multi-punch” key and manually punch the three holes in the column that represented parenthesis, asterisks, semi-colons, and every other special character used in Fortran.

I used to always sneak off to the computer center with its room of 029 keypunches that had a full IBM Selectric typewriter keyboard and could use drum-cards for a pre-formatted punch without having to spend 90% of your time hitting the space-key a zillion times to go to the next field on the cards.

Ahh!  The “good 'ole days”. . .  NOT!!

I’ll take a full WYSIWYG formatted display and a current-model machine any day of the week.  Not having to program everything in assembler, FORTRAN or COBOL is a bonus!  (Python and JavaScript are more than enough stress for this 'ole codger.)

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I agree with you. I don’t miss archaic languages like Fortran or COBOL at all.

Coming soon:

Hello Cortana. Please write a program to do (insert task)

Have you tried Matlab? (A language that is specifically tailored for advanced mathematics.)

Trust me, it makes FORTRAN’s formatting requirements look like DISHWATER!  I looked at that language once and I had a migraine headache for a week. :grimacing:

Or, in my case:  “Hello Cortana.  Uninstall yourself and delete yourself permanently!”

In all seriousness, sometimes these beasties can be useful.

My younger brother is confined to a wheelchair and he has an Alexa set up to turn things on and off, like lights, his fans, his air-conditioner, etc.

Apart from physical controllers like yoke, rudder pedals and some hardware knobs and switches, I have made MSFS almost totally voice controlled from initial automatic startup of msfs with required third party apps and correct region specific addons, through checklists, camera control, ATC comms etc., to complete shut down of the sim. Anything to get rid of using the mouse.

Consider yourself lucky, none of those have anything like the incomprehensibility of APL and it’s derivates k, etc.

https://wiki.c2.com/?AplLanguage

And yes people did use this for real stuff and the modern derivatives are in heavy use in a range of industries.

I never used APL, but did program in Forth (Forth (programming language) - Wikipedia) – kind of an interesting RPN language. I used it to help create a kiln controller (drying lumber).

MUMPS (aka. M) anyone? :slight_smile:

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I actually studied APL for a semester in college. . . and it was “a bit chewy”.  It’s still used today on the bottom of checks.

IMHO it was invented by some top-secret intelligence agency to obfuscate what they were trying to do!!  Though, when you get the right mindset, (stark raving lunatic?), it makes sense.
:wink: :man_facepalming:

Update:
I just followed that link and it’s not the same as the language I studied.
99% of what we called “APL” on the college’s IBM-360 was comprised of special symbols that had no relationship with anything, anywhere within the known solar system.  For example, the symbols at the bottom of a check are symbols for “input” and “print” if I remember correctly.

This topic is going off-course about programming rather monitors.

Stay on-topic please and remember this forum is to discuss MSFS.

Thank you.

Spoilsport!  You’re ruining all our memory-lane fun. . . :wink:

Well, back on topic it is.

and

Enjoy!

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as you may know, you playold versions here
The History of Microsoft Flight Simulator.
The site has FS1 to FS4. I owned them all.

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