There's no harm looking back...

[Fizzelle]

I know the old codgers amongst us have discussed (sort of) this before but sometimes I feel humbled by all the good things happening right now in Flight Sims. Some may remember the following things that the youngsters on here might have missed so, here goes, for their benefit.

 

1. Back in the 1970s I saw a computer sitting in a Tandy Electronics shop called the Commodore Pet ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET ). Next to it was a book of programs to type in. I thumbed through it quickly and therein found a Flight Sim to enter. Hundreds of lines of code. The flight sim was all text, no graphics, and covered take off from Texas (I think) and took into account all the procedures a pilot of an airliner had to do including throttle-back of the engines to cut down on noise of the people down below. The program rated the pilot on whether they hit the correct key sequence to comply with the air regulations. Wonderful stuff, and it got me hooked already!

 

2. Geoff Crammond devised a flight sim called Aviator ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Crammond ) which I found revolutionary at the time in 1983. It featured hidden line removal to keep the speed up and also modelled G Forces. I remember reading the manual and laughing where it said there was no "pause" mode as it was a flight simulator and pausing the game mid flight was not on! You can watch this on YouTube if you search for it.

 

3. And who hasn't cut their teeth on the original Microsoft Flight Sim flying their Cessna between the twin towers in NYC, ironically years before that awful event. I remember how difficult it was and it took me ages to get it right.

 

Some happy memories there, and sorry for the indulgence of getting it out of my system before I get too old to forget what I was rambling on about!

 

[Gypsy Pilot]

Don't worry about your musings kid, we all do it.

 

Dale