I used this when it came out. Flew around Chicago with the Sears Tower as one of the main landmark building to flew around, and sometimes crashed into it because the controls (Keyboard) did not always respond fast enough, and the simple graphics sometimes made it hard to really tell how close you were to the buildings. But the whole computer only had 640 Kilobytes of memory to run everything.
New version uses more power than the entire Apollo Space program used from start to finish. Amazing how times and computing capacity have changed over the years.
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I was taking computer classes back then, and the curriculum that they were using stated that if a computer had more then 64k of memory it was a Super Computer LOL…to funny, we also had to write programs on punch cards in a language call I think it was SLIP…
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If they were high density disks, you would need 81,000 of them to hold the Standard MSFS install.
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Long time ago, 64K of RAM was all mankind would ever need , signed, Bill Gates…
Well… suddenly a mouse sneeked in and was hungry… 128K…
It’s pretty amazing to realise how computers have evolved over time…
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You know, it isn’t just that the entire game could fit onto single floppy (90K for the Atari 8-bit version), it was all that came with the game back then. I miss the days of real documentation. 
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That brought back memories, I remember those charts, and I suspect I still have my Amiga copy laying around somewhere.
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I remember reading the manual that came with that version and learning how VOR navigation worked and it blew my young little mind! 
Of course now we have the internet and forums and stuff, so it’s easier to learn this stuff from secondary sources. But I do love a good manual even now…
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My current system has literally 1,000,000x that 64k. That’s likely more memory than existed on the entire planet back in the day, all installed in a consumer level device, primarily used for playing games with. And since I started my business, I’m using it for that, too, but as the biz grows, I’ll probably get a dedicated system just for that.
But that memory by itself, not considering any other component, cost a grand total of $300. Granted, many people may say that 64GB is more than I need, and perhaps it is (but it’s also possible it’s one reason that I don’t have as many issues as others on this board do), but I figured I would rather insure that by the time it was not overkill, I would prefer to have the same SKU from the same vendor, with the same specs as the 32GB I was going to install, so I just did it. I didn’t find it cost prohibitive, either.
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Here’s my 3000/040. I still play with it once in a while. That 3.5-inch external drive could read several formats. Inside is a Piccoso II video card and a 386 Bridgeboard. I bought “ShapeShifter” for Mac emulation. The Amiga was a bit weak when it came to a web browser but the Mac had Netscape. 
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As a PC user. SU5 gave me a 5.25" floppy.
Probably not a huge amount, because most of the work in things like FS1/FS2 isn’t about the simulation, it’s about getting the graphics on the screen fast enough.
Obviously that’s still a thing (!) but then you had to calculate all the 3D points as a 2D projection by hand and draw and fill the polygons manually (e.g. writing pixels to the screen), whereas now you have hardware and an interface.
Somewhere on my shelves I have a book about writing a FS from first principles on an Atari ST in 68000 code.
I would reckon when the platform became more sim orientated and less “can we draw things fast enough” there’s probably stuff from that, and we know it’s built on FSX which is an extension of FS2004 and FS2002.
In some ways getting a working flight sim on a TRS80 or an Apple 2 - the former for it’s 128x48 mono resolution, the latter for the slow 6502 CPU (not great at 16 bit maths) is as much an achievement as MSFS is.
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I picked the first link I found when searching, which just happened to be for X-Box version. It was listed as 97.2GB.
Xbox Series X owners need 100GB of storage for MS Flight Sim.
I then assumed a 1.2MB high density 5.25" disk.
97,200/1.2=81,000
If you take the PC version its 123.01GB in size.
123010/1.2=102,508.3…
Could be 360k floppies Or 100k. Still remember my first incredibly expensive 100k disk drive. Awesome. It’s depressing I’m old enough to remember installing Windows off 8 floppy disks.
In my case, the BBC Micro program “Aviator” which was probably about 16k loaded off tape. Still pretty good ; Spitfire on an Island with lots of wireframe scenery.
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I had hundreds of hours of fun with psion flight simulation on the zx 48k spectrum. Because the sim had no sound, i remember i used to turn the sound up on the TV, which had kind of the noise a prop would make !
I had a break from PC’s in the 90’s and much of the 00’s, then bought FS2004 in 2008…wow ! Then FSX, more wow. I used the UK photographic scenery packs. Was flat no autogen, but looked great at 1000 feet plus. Had add on for airports, so they had buildings etc
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I made this pic as a comparison. I spent a lot of time on the Apple II FS2.0! Not so much on any of the in-between versions.
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I learned to navigate with those charts and the amazing manual that came bundled in the versions prior to (I believe) FS 2004. From that version, the manual (which could be mistaken with a ground school) came only in digital form and with no charts whatsoever.
If I was starting now, I’m sure I would never learn to follow a radial.
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Sorry, I thought the discussion was on the original size of Flight Simulator.
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Bill Gates is not the only one. Arthur C. Clarke, the sci-fi genius that invented geosynchronous orbit, made the prediction that about 1 TB (or 1 PB, not sure) would be enough to store the entire consciousness of a human being (“3001”, the fourth book of the “2001” series). In either case, we would be able to store ourselves today in a single shelf 
