earlier stuff snipped for brevity
Hi Dennis,

Glad to see you are still monitoring the traffic here. I still drop in from
time to time even though I upgraded to FS98 around the same time as you and
Pete.

You might be interested to know that here in the UK it is now just about as
difficult to get FS98 and AF99 as it was a couple of years ago to get FS5.1 and
FSFS. Microsoft decided to stop supplying FS98 in Europe to force new buyers to
get FS2000. The consequence was that most dealers stopped stocking any add-ons
designed for FS98 and just kept FS2000 and compatibles. Unfortunately FS2000
was a big commercial flop because most people just didn't have the hardware
needed to run it, and the average UK simmer is much more reluctant to upgrade
his machine than his US counterpart. (At UK prices it isn't surprising.) The
end result is that stores like EB and Game have now almost given up selling ANY
flight sim software. Very sad!

On the other hand, a company called SoftKey, based in Sussex, have just
re-released FS95 (CD only - no manuals) under licence from Microsoft for £9.99.
It is widely available through all the outlets which sell cut-price "obsolete"
software, which includes many general stores, petrol stations, and toy shops.
We are probably about to see a major backward step in flight simming in the UK!

Richard
Hello, Richard,
As you can see from the date, I haven't been very good with my FS5 Forum
monitoring. Good to hear from you and saddened to hear of the lamentable state
of fltsim in the U.K.
I was there this summer for a while and was delighted to find a perfectly
good shop in Marlborough that helped me get my laptop Anglo/Euro/aol-active.
Nice person and most well informed.
I visited a couple shops and can certainly appreciate what you say about
software availability. It's ironic to me that in this increasingly borderless
world, things like MS FS (and gasoline) still show how separate we are.
-- Dennis S, FSEngEd@aol.com