Hi all, I have learned a lot from you guys in regarding the history of flight sims…All comments are welcome here.
1983: January - Apple Computer introduces the Apple IIe for US$1400 Sorry needed to set the record straight
The kid down the road from the Wright brothers. It was a stick, blanket and lots of imagination.
In 1983 there was Dr Soft’s 747 released for the 32k BBC Micro. Loved it . Got me hooked on Flight Sims
See, in 1983 they were able ot make a 747. Today, we’re mainly left with GA.
The move back to VFR and GA needs to be encouraged. Flying IFR on autopilot over the Atlantic for hours is mind numbingly boring
My first flight sim was the TRS-80 Model I subLogic version of FS1 by Bruce Artwick in ~1979-ish. The TRS-80 Model I graphics resolution was 128x48 pixels (we have icons bigger than that now). Here’s what the experience was like:
subLOGIC Flight Simulator 1 for TRS-80 - YouTube
So you can imagine how it feels to run FS2020 lol. One of the things I had not imagined seeing in my lifetime (along with 1TB microSD cards etc.)
You’re all wrong.
The first simulation of flight was Wilbur Wright getting towed along on a bike by his brother with some goggles on while flapping his arms.
Aviator on the BBC Micro written by Geoff Crammond who went on to do Revs and later Microprose Grand Prix which transformed into the official F1 series. Spent hours flying that Spitfire
I have some memories of a text only flight sim on Amiga in the 90’s, No graphics, just text … I didnt play it very much I have not been able to find out much about it, so if anyone knows more, it would be interesting
Silicon Graphics also had a flight simulator that ran on IRIS workstations. Had a 747. F-14 Tomcat, and others…
Also multiplayer…
From Wikipedia
flight was written in the summer of 1983 for the SGI IRIS series of computer workstations. IRIS’ used Motorola 68000 family CPUs, and could provide approximately 1 MIPS and draw about 500 polygons per second.
In 1984, networking capabilities began to be added. Initially, two stations were connected by serial cables. This allowed about 7 frames per second. By SIGGRAPH 1984, XNS support was added, allowing play over an ethernet.
Probably in early 1985, dog was created, and dog and flight were shipped as demonstration software included with SGI workstations. In 1986, UDP broadcast protocol capability was added (using port 5130). Information was transmitted via broadcast packets and at frame rate, meaning that the program made intensive use of network resources and even a small number of players was capable of saturating an Ethernet. So while it was probably the first game to use the Internet Protocol Suite, the game could not pass through a router, and thus could not be played across the Internet itself.
Due to the expense of the SGI workstations and computer networks at the time, many system administrators removed dogfight from newly installed systems in order to prevent abuse of resources, or limited play to restricted off-peak hours.
Just found a couple more in the cupboard…
How about that AV-8B requirements, then? 1MB!!
Ahhh, them were the days…
@JohnnyDioxin Nice! Amiga games
Now everyone has learnt about the history of flight sims, you can take the quiz:
FSFlyingSchool - History of Flight Simulators Quiz
I’ve always avoided that sort of “quiz” tbh because up until FSX the only civilian aircraft flight sim I was interested in was Flight Unlimited II, and I’m guessing many of the questions would be about MS products - about which apart from the Combat Flight Simulator series, I know nothing
edit: btw I don’t just have Amiga stuff:
FU II and the amazing pixel shader like effect with the rain drops on the windshield. These were a first and an awe moment. I also remember trying the VFX1 VR headset with FU 1 doing aerobatics and it can’t compare with a modern headset resolution, but I believe it hooked me up with VR more than 25 years ago already.
@JohnnyDioxin Big Commodore fan? I was too!
Perhaps you’ll have more fun with:
FSFlyingSchool - What is the Flight Sim Quiz
I still have that Flight Sim.
As soon as I have time, I will be getting the programs moved off the floppy disk so I can run it on my TRS80 Model IV Emulator on my Win 10 computer… That will give me something to do while I wait on some of the MSFS Core Fixes.
I tried using some emulators a couple of years back, and while they were amazing I found it much more fun to use the actual hardware. I did have a couple of ‘vintage’ bits of kit around the house, but I went on a spending spree on ebay and at local auction houses and bought myself a large amount of Amiga and Spectrum stuff.
I couldn’t find any Commodore computers, and I gave my last one away in the late 90’s.
My oldest memory of using a PC was an Acorn in 1982 when the army started teaching me basic programming. Shame I didn’t stick with that, though I did teach myself BASIC on the Spectrum in the 80’s and then the C64 in the mid 90’s. I think it was 1999 or 2000 before I finally gave in and switched my Amiga 1200T for my first Intel PC.
So any MSFS before then I wouldn’t have seen anyway. And once IL-2 came out I found the graphics and flight dynamics etc in the civvy sims of the time very disappointing.
Swing that lamp!
Crazy I own all 3 of those aircraft from Just Flight.
Still haven’t got around to trying them yet.
The Hunter F.6 just went on sale also.
Gonna grab it this weekend.