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25 years?


MAD1

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What was the first post on the FlightSim site? Have browsed through the Archive, the first one I can find is in forum "FS4": "Re: FS4 Forum" Started by volkman, 06-26-1996 11:01 PM Replies: 3 Views: 2,322 last nels 07-02-1996, 12:55 PM. Wednesday 26 June 1996. So June 1996 is indeed 25 years ago. When did FlightSim start? What was the first item in it?

 

In Articles, the first is "Technic Direct Annnounces Aircraft Collection" by FlightSim.Com Staff Published on 06-01-1996 11:00 PM. Saturday 1 June 1996. All Features has the first item "How To... Fly The Big Iron With Pitch And Trim" by FlightSim.Com Staff Published on 01-01-1996 11:00 PM, Monday 1 January 1996.

 

It'd be very good for one or more of the FlightSim founders to put an article in Articles about the start of FlightSim and a 25 retrospective. It's wondeful to have all the rich history in the site.

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Thanks Dominic, I read it including all the comments. Very good. Nice to see a (perhaps older) photo of Nels and hear his story. I think he'd be the definition of an archetypal "quiet achiever", doesn't foist his views on anyone, just runs the site. And via this site the international community fraternity is what it is. Now that's altruism. I should also mention the other Admins, all those folk keep us enjoying this community. Thanks folks. And yes, the point about subscribing with a membership is pertinent, so I should look at doing that sometime soon. Just slack I suppose! Edited by MAD1
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Thanks Dominic, am listening to it now. Very interesting and heaps of nostalgia. Am noting the times of the segments in the show where Willy chats with Nels. Will post those times here once done. (The show is 1h59m30s with lots of music, so for convenience if anyone only wants to listen to the interview itself, see my times in the next post.) The start is at 16m15s.

 

16m15s. Introduces Nels. The early days, 1980s plus. Before the World Wide Web (www) although the guys say before the Internet, that it existed before. Yes, before www which I think began about 1993. I walked into my local university library in 1993, having signed up to take a one semester unit of an IT degree. The library had a display in the foyer, with a cobweb of string, and "World Wide Web" on a banner. I wondered what it was, had a brief look, and thought "hmm, seems to be something to do with libraries communicating with each other"

 

Nels is talking about early 1980s and his Bulletin Board Service (BBS), with 4 phone lines incoming to his house, and dial-up modems. Back in 1981 I was living in London, England. I remember in a "videoclip memory few seconds", walking past a shop in The Strand near Charing Cross Station, and in the window was a sign "IBM Personal Computer". The box and a green screen was there, turned on. I think it advertised a spreadsheet, probably was SuperCalc. I wondered "why would anyone want a computer at home, probably a book-keeper or accountant might find it useful, can't think of any other reason". In 1996 a friend gave me his leftover modem after buying a better one, I remember clearly getting it fired up with dial-in, and a second-hand PC, with Kermit software on it, and connecting into that university's BBS. Was amazed. Only green text on a black screen. No mouse, no Windows, no graphics.

Edited by MAD1
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SKYBLUERADIO. Willy Canuck show "Hagis and poutine" 16 May 2021, 1h59m30s long. Interviews Nels Anderson on the 25th anniversary of the start of FlightSim.com in 1996.

https://pod.co/sky-blue-radio/willy-canuck-show-ft-nels-anderson

5 parts to the interview, in between is music.

Part 1 ...16m15s-...26m35s

Part 2 ...35m53s-...44m19s

Part 3 ...55m09s-1h03m47s

Part 4 1h16m45s-1h26m47s

Part 5 1h35m45s-1h49m17s

Edited by MAD1
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Prompted by Nels interview, looked up Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet#History to refresh my memory:

- "In the 1960s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense funded research into time-sharing of computers."

- "ARPANET development began with two network nodes which were interconnected ... on 29 October 1969 ... 15 sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971"

- "Early international collaborations for the ARPANET were rare. Connections were made in 1973 to the Norwegian Seismic Array"

- "In 1974, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn used the term internet as a shorthand for internetwork"

- "Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 ... In 1982 (TCP/IP) was standardized"

- "... expanded into academic and research organizations in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan in 1988–89."

- "Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) emerged in 1989 in the United States and Australia."

- "In mid-1989, MCI Mail and Compuserve established connections to the Internet, delivering email and public access products to the half million users of the Internet"

- "The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990."

- "In March 1990, the first high-speed T1 (1.5 Mbit/s) link between the NSFNET and Europe was installed between Cornell University and CERN, allowing much more robust communications than were capable with satellites. Six months later Tim Berners-Lee would begin writing WorldWideWeb, the first web browser, after two years of lobbying CERN management. By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web: the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 0.9, the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the first Web browser (which was also a HTML editor and could access Usenet newsgroups and FTP files), the first HTTP server software (later known as CERN httpd), the first web server, and the first Web pages that described the project itself."

 

And the rest is history, as they say!

Edited by MAD1
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