Maybe 4, or maybe 6 - I can’t recall when but Flight Simulator debuted the year I was born in 1982 and around 4-6 my uncle introduced me to it and whenever I got some computer time to play I would usually do the same thing: take off from Meigs in the Cessna and buzz the Sears Tower which would put me on course for the highway that I could follow and set me right up for approach to Rwy27 at O’Hare. With the help of a scenery mod I was able to put Meigs Field back in the game and fly my old route.
Today using live weather gave me a cloudy sky with brisk winds out of the south so I wouldn’t be departing from Rwy36, which is the default loading spot for the old FS games
Down low to stay out of clouds and follow the interstate highway. With so much ground clutter in the scenery nowadays it’s much harder to follow the road when you are this low. Back in the day it was just a bold line on an otherwise featureless flat plane - much easier to see and follow!
Wow! The good old days. I had an original IBM PC (4.77 mhz CPU) which I had upgraded from 2 floppies to a Seagate ST-225 20 MB hard drive (that cost about $600).
At $600 for 20 MB, how much would 13 TB of storage (my present PC) cost back then? Why too many zeros!
Pat
Gosh, thanks for the memory! I played it back then too and loved the sim with its issues just as I love this version.
I don’t know how many bleeding-edge computers I have purchased over the years so I could upgrade to and run the newest version of flight simulator.
Back in the day, everyone was trying to make IBM-compatible computers and the defacto test that you were compatible was your computer could run Microsoft flight simulator.
Ahh yes. The Meigs to O’Hare route. I started with FS2. It’s cool to compare where the sim was and where it is now. I started doing this when I was about 10-12 on my grandpas computer. I still remember using the keyboard and nothing else. Like the first time I got the plane off the ground. Been hooked ever since.
Man, FS used to look great. At least in my mind back then. Nostalgia still runs through me and I imagine it like it was yesterday and laying out in my yard looking at the clouds and imagining flying. Then going through the channels of a Realistic CB radio with a moonraker (I think) antenna. Never actually talking on it because I wasn’t an idiot; just listening and imagining since my dad was into that before and after he was a pilot. Ah, good times, I miss them.
I too was flying around chicago alot when i was young, hell, i learnt to fly the sim by making mistake after mistake. Such good memories of this, and indeed, i have put meigs in where it belongs as well. That Mayor needs to go on trial for destroying such a nice little and Flightsim-historic airport Glad the community brought it back though, very glad. Did my first VR flight from there.
Good memories - I started swimming at the beginning. Eventually, my interest led me to start building my own computers, with Flight Sim driving the specs.
I’ve built my last three, and now get almost as much enjoyment out of selecting parts and building as simming.
Fantastic.
Remember it well. Started flightsim on a MAC and then migrated to the PC when the MAC version was no longer supported. Remember the simplistic WWI flights on the mac. Flightsim has come a long way.
All that brings back memories for me. The early version I first had didn’t even have sound. I bought an add on to make sound from the little PC speakers once used, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Remembering my first flight from Meigs, seeing screen texts saying “you have Golf”..I do? Also ram cost $25 a meg, & MB supported a whopping 4 megs.
actually i made this pic a few months ago
Glad the community brought it back though, very glad. Did my first VR flight from there.
Good times.