DOS Days - Games - Flight Simulators""

...and then.... fast forward a few decades and we have home equipment like this:

 

 

Edited February 15, 20242 yr by charliearon
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Ah, the memories. Falcon 3 was my first real flight sim. Ran on a 386 PC. I seem to remember 256k of ram, and a 100 mb hard drive. And a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive.

Edited February 15, 20242 yr by Penzoil3

No hard drive.  It was all 5 1/4" floppies. That's not very old though.   The guys using tape drives, and even punch-cards...now THAT'S old.  I worked with those guys early on.  They had a neat outlook on everything tech.

I cut my Teeth and learned the Trade flying for The Rebel Alliance in X-WING by LucasArts.

Was it really a 'flight sim'? Maybe not. But we sure had loads of fun!

F15 Strike Eagle on the Sinclair Spectrum 48k my very first flight sim

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/0001702/

First simulator was 747 on the Acorn Electron by Doctor Soft.  I think I also had 737 Simulator by Salamander Software but I think it came after the 747 one.  

747 - Acorn Electron

and

737 Simulator

Yeah - the videos are representative of gameplay and no, there were no tweaks to increase FPS or graphics settings....We certainly have come a long way.

🙂

jj

As shown in the OP link, I used to have Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.

But to get really old, although it's technically not a flight but an operational simulator, I briefly used to play RAF: The Battle of Britain by Moby Games.  It was in the early 1980s and for the Apple II.  It was a text-based game.  I didn't have an Apple II, but we had one at work, so I would sometimes spend my lunch break playing it:

 

And as for simulator hardware, there was the Link simulator:

 

Edited February 15, 20242 yr by Mike A
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I remember the Link Simulator and even got the chance to try it out once when i was 9, wonderful experience back then!

Thanks for this.

Edited February 16, 20242 yr by Wildblue

On 2/15/2024 at 3:49 PM, Mike A said:

As shown in the OP link, I used to have Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.

But to get really old, although it's technically not a flight but an operational simulator, I briefly used to play RAF: The Battle of Britain by Moby Games.  It was in the early 1980s and for the Apple II.  It was a text-based game.  I didn't have an Apple II, but we had one at work, so I would sometimes spend my lunch break playing it:

 

And as for simulator hardware, there was the Link simulator:

 

I had Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (we called it "SWOTL") and also Birds of Prey.

How neat.   The above text-based game, that reminds me of Wishbringer.  I can't remember the exact name.  One of the Zork spinoffs.   I never had RAF: Battle of Britain although I did have lots o' stuff for the Apple //e.

I had the original Bruce Artwick flight simulator for the Apple ][ on cassette tape.  If there was any kind of problem loading the tape, the plane would take off but as soon as you were in the air you'd get a "Stolen Aircraft!" banner and the game would freeze.  Later someone was able to create a disk version that was a lot faster and more robust to load.

I bought the first Microsoft Flight Simulator before I even had a computer to run it on.  I played it at work.  At lunch, or after work, of course. 😄 

I had a surprising number of the flight sims shown, and it was exciting to see the box art again.  I still have most of them packed away.  Got lots of stories to tell, too, but that's for another day.

Hook

 

circa 1981 purchases

 circa 1984

 

Psion Flight Simulator for the ZX Spectrum 48k - Christmas 1982. Where have all of those years gone?

My first flight sim was Sierra's 3D Helicopter Sim from 1987.  I think it came along with a computer we bought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra's_3-D_Helicopter_Simulator

Later on, I played a ton of the Microprose combat sims.  I remember F15, and the F19 Stealth Fighter game. 

Anyone remember the Chuck Yeager games?  I played a lot of the Advanced Flight Trainer.  Later on there was a combat game, but I think that was in the 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager's_Advanced_Flight_Trainer

On 2/20/2024 at 10:27 AM, kerosene31 said:

My first flight sim was Sierra's 3D Helicopter Sim from 1987.  I think it came along with a computer we bought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra's_3-D_Helicopter_Simulator

Later on, I played a ton of the Microprose combat sims.  I remember F15, and the F19 Stealth Fighter game. 

Anyone remember the Chuck Yeager games?  I played a lot of the Advanced Flight Trainer.  Later on there was a combat game, but I think that was in the 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager's_Advanced_Flight_Trainer

Chuck Yeager's AFT is amazing.  I still have the audio cassette which came with the game.  I spend hours flying on that sim with a CGA!!! monitor.  Years later I got EGA, when the world was in VGA.  Good ole XT 4.77Mhz machine showed me chase plane views in CY AFT.  What an experience it was!!!  I don't think Gen Z kids even know what a CGA, EGA colors are lol....

Edited February 22, 20242 yr by Skywolf

On 2/20/2024 at 1:08 PM, Christopher Low said:

Where have all of those years gone?

Don't ask me, I wouldn't know