March, 2000. That was when I bought my first pc. I bought it specifically to get started in FS2000 and Rainbow 6.I became so addicted to browsing and installing new freeware, particularly 737 models, panels and sounds. OMG there was soooooo much 737 freeware then. Seemed like a new panel uploaded almost daily!When my job sent me out of town for 2 months I was absolutely miserable being away from FS, and my pc in general.To be honest, simming was 100% more immersive to me before I became so concerned with graphics and how real the terrain and the aircraft looked. I was more concerned with navigation and having a nice complex flightdeck to work with. As long as I had that and good framerates, and lots of online traffic and ATC, I was thrilled and totally immersed.

When I began this hobby-obsession-addiction, two years ago it was not til 6 months later that I discovered there was an entire flightsim community out there on the WWW like this site full of forums, downloads, and commercial products. Curious, how long did it take you to discover you were not alone?

2 hours and 30 seconds... 2 hours and 20 seconds of that was trying to define "AVSIM". :(

Hi,Wow, another 2006 ongoing forum topic. I started a BBS when I first started Flight Simming back in 1985. The BBS was called Trans-Continental BBS and was dedicated to Flight Simulation, I ran TriBBS software. I started when I was 24 years old, man I'm getting old.

I was running NightVision BBS at 1200 baud on Spitfire then Wildcat around 1990 when Chuck Yeagers Advanced Flight Trainer was pretty popular. Were you listed in Computer Shopper?