I was going through some of my early “Flight Sim” memorabilia, and found these 4 items buried deep in the collection … The Birth of the Computer “Flight Simulator”.
Thanks Bruce … Thanks Tim
I was going through some of my early “Flight Sim” memorabilia, and found these 4 items buried deep in the collection … The Birth of the Computer “Flight Simulator”.
Thanks Bruce … Thanks Tim
Awesome. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be!
I had Fly! It was pretty revolutionary at the time … we’d never seen panels like that before.
That’s takes me back. I had FS2 for the Amiga.
In its time, Bruce’s book on Computer Graphics was “State of the art”, - reading through it now, it seems so long ago, and so much has changed.
I had a whole bunch of the early FS95 add-ons and some other bits and pieces from the mid '90’s … think I dumped the whole lot when we had to make an international move about 15 years ago. Shame really.
Call me a sad case … I have dug up a copy of Mr. Artwick’s book and ordered it. That’s right about the time I first had the chance to get my hand on a computer (original Apple) and tought myself programming (I think we call it coding these days…)
Doing so much with such limited computer capabilities was a real skill…
Yes thanks Bruce, way back when I bought a wireframe 3D program from him it came on several sheets of paper with long rows of digits for the 8080 assembly code. Typed it in line by line having to repeat a line when the checksum was wrong, finished and dumped it to audio cassette. And you know what, it actually ran at maybe 5 or 6 fps. How far we have come.
LOL, for some, even now in 2020, MSFS is still only running at 5 or 6 fps !!!
Audio cassettes, and telphone modems that were 110 bps.
Would have taken 28.8 years to download MSFS !!!
Wing Commander Prophecy expansion: Secret Operations (1998). That’s the first game I can remember that had, both, episodic content and being download only. Episodes were released every week…I think…maybe two…hard to remember that far back haha.
Anyway, residential broadband was still in its infancy in my area and we had to use dialup. Tying up a phone line during the days and evenings for 3hrs+ wasn’t an option, unless you were fortunate enough to have a 2nd line. I wasn’t. So an overnight download using GetRight download manager is what a lot of us did.
Nostalgia is nice to visit every now and then but I don’t miss those days what so ever.
I had the Sub Logic Flight Physics Aircraft Control running on my Commodore 64.
Massive respect to Bruce. He’s the sole reason why I bought C16 Frasca Field from MSFS marketplace https://www.facebook.com/flytsimulations/videos/vb.1431278390493084/1838297936335308/?type=3&theater
He started the development of MSFS franchise exactly in that region at the University of Illinois in Champaign, about 4-5 miles from C16.
If you still have the flight physics book would you mind sharing with Asobo?
Its in English, and the maths is very complex !! Far to difficult to explain or for anyone else to understand except Sub-Logic
This is just in my line of sight in the closet of my current “home office”. There are oodles more versions stashed in moving boxes and other storage spaces. I know there is a copy of Fly! around here as well!
I plan on going through all that stuff after the holidays and will post more. I KNOW there is a copy of Bruce Artwick’s Flight Simulator II for Atari (the entrance to the wormhole for me) somewhere in my “archives”.
Omg, that’s amazing! My first Flightsim was Sub-Logic Flightsimulator II for Commodore C-64. It must be in 1985, where is the time;-)
From humble beginnings to fairly advanced simulations in a matter of 30 years.
It begs to wonder if we live in one of those really advanced simulations, we call life ?
Something that Elon has been talking about…
Wow thanks for the reminder. I had the VIP Classic Airliners - there were some nice models in there. Back in the day when you actually went into the games store in the mall to buy the latest add on.
I have a similar collection of old, nay ancient, Flight sim memorabilia.
Sadly, to avail you all of a photo, I would have to dig up a time capsule and this is no longer
possible because some idiot went and erected a henge over the top of it.
Really enjoying a great thread!
I remember those many hours spent before the CRT of my PC in 1984 desesperately trying to fly FS 2 in CGA 320x200 4 colors, pixellized as ever, the grinding wheel sound out of the small loudspeaker and the 120+pages manual on my knees to help me mastering IFR and ILS. No assistance in these times, Internet was more or less still Arpanet and CERN has not released the WWW protocol.
Graphics ugly by the actual standarts, but this was real dream. What the CRT couldn’t show, your imagination provided it. Fond memories. Thanks, Mr Artwick. You made me travel in places I would never have been otherwise.
Glad you enjoyed them. These were some if the first addons for the franchise, outside of the sceneries produced by Mallard. Much has changed since then.