MS Flight sims through the 'ages' anyone?

I happened across this fun 'time machine' review on YouTube and thought it worth sharing.

 

 

Enjoy the history lesson.

Great video and great memories. I still have all of them saved in their boxes. Since 1.0 I was always behind the eight ball in respect to the latest hardware, but just as in MSFS 2020, I always happened to manage!!

To steal a line from a Maurice Chevalier...Hermione Gingold tune, Ah yes! I remember it well. Not certain of the year I was introduced to that Sub Logic STIMULATOR (yes...stimulator it was and still is), but 1983 is close.

I've been with the franchise since '82 and it was a a bit of a grim reminder of just what "State of the Art" technology was in the early years....which were NOT that long ago. I use a signature line on some forums that goes "The older I get, the better I was." lol But I well remember sitting in a bar marveling at the miracle of tech in gaming and shoving my quarters into a square table game thing called Pong. No way on Earth did I comprehend how they were able to achieve such 'magic'.

I've been with the franchise since '82 and it was a a bit of a grim reminder of just what "State of the Art" technology was in the early years....which were NOT that long ago. I use a signature line on some forums that goes "The older I get, the better I was." lol But I well remember sitting in a bar marveling at the miracle of tech in gaming and shoving my quarters into a square table game thing called Pong. No way on Earth did I comprehend how they were able to achieve such 'magic'.

 

I'm right there behind you maybe a couple of years. Those were the good old days, except for the technology, but we didn't know the difference, lol. I wonder what flight simulation will be like in another 20, 25 years? Hoping to make it at least that long. FS is all about all I have for a hobby now. Lost my medical over 20 years ago.

I miss pong! lol. My first F.S. mid 90's. on my first computer that had all of 12mb memory

Great video, I also remember doing flightsim on a very "basic' Sinclair ZX81 with the 16K memory expansion and a cassette player. It was great, it was the Timex 1000 I think, in the US, but I put the whole compter together over 3 nights, it came as a kit. I still have it!!

I wish I still had my trusty Commodore 64........ no I don't, that's a lie.:pilot:

It's not MS Flight Sim, but I still have Flight Unlimited III with the original manual, and in it, it states "fly in and around the state of Washington only. While it would be nice to fly anywhere in the world, that's simply not feasible. Imagine how many discs that would entail!"

 

I still chuckle at that line. How far we've come for sure!

My first flight simulator like this was the subLogic one back in the middle 1980's. I also 'flew' many of the Microprose combat aircraft games back in the day. Although, nothing will beat my days in the US Navy when I got to fly the F-14 simulator at NAS (now MCAS) Miramar and the S-3 Viking simulator at NAS North Island, while I was getting qualified to be a engine turn qualified mechanic on those airplanes :)

I remember how eager I was to go to the mall and visit the software store where I could look to see if the new Flight Sim program had been released here in the US. It was around 1986 or so when we were in the heyday of software generation and publication. Ah, the floppy disks, the 3.5" disks and the vast amounts of time it all took to upload and get running. We didn't know any better back then so it felt like Star Trek to us. The memories are still there and I can smell the plastic wrapped packaging to this very day. So much of today's youth has no idea what that was like and it's really sad.

One word...Meigs

 

 

:cool:

Great video, I also remember doing flightsim on a very "basic' Sinclair ZX81 with the 16K memory expansion and a cassette player. It was great, it was the Timex 1000 I think, in the US, but I put the whole compter together over 3 nights, it came as a kit. I still have it!!

 

My first computer was also a ZX81 with the 16K memory expansion, I was lucky, mine was not the kit version, after that I upgraded to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum which had 48K ram, a 3.5 MHz Z80 cpu and boasted an 8 colour display.

what blows my mind is how much those old computers cost, especially in today's dollars.

what blows my mind is how much those old computers cost, especially in today's dollars.

 

It's only the high production rate combined with the miniaturization in integrated circuits (ICs) and automated production lines, along with having most stuff done in places with low labor costs that lets them keep the cost per unit down today. If today's units were produced in the same numbers as in the 1970's, and with the same amount of labor, and in the U.S. they'd be much more expensive.

 

And even today, notice how the earliest version of high end graphics cards (for one example) are very expensive, but that as the years go by that same capability gets cheaper and cheaper.

Edited October 16, 2022 by lnuss