I got hooked with fs4, and finally had just about all I wanted by fs2004. Passed on fs 95 and 2000, but like you I'm always happy to watch the hobby advance until I hop on again :( This time though, fsx may very well still be the 'current' version. Given the incredible advances fs9 addons made over it's life, I can only imagine fsx a couple years from now. :( It's all good.

I started in the Spectrum 48K Flight simulator... and then jumped to the FS5.1 when i finally had a PC.What can i say... things we get for granted now were just in our imagination 20 years ago.Companies like PMDG played a very important role in making it all possible. We just have to say tks for someone in 1997 decided to go for this kind of business.Regards,M

It's great reading some of the stories on here, it reminds me of when I was kid flying crop dusters on the C64 :) Something that has always confused me is why we cant get 'close' to LevelD flight dynamics in home simulators considering the fact that we are in the year 2010. I do understand that it's very expensive to buy this data. My first real simulator experience was a Tristar back in the 80's, we got shown around the facility and the computers driving the hardware, flight dynamics etc where absolutely ancient compared to the lowest spec machine you can buy today yet they could realistically train real pilots with those machines. So what held Microsoft back?

My first real simulator experience was a Tristar back in the 80's, we got shown around the facility and the computers driving the hardware, flight dynamics etc where absolutely ancient compared to the lowest spec machine you can buy today yet they could realistically train real pilots with those machines. So what held Microsoft back?

Most importantly, they did not focus all their efforts on simulating a single airplane type and model. Second, they chose to implement all the dedicated hardware (gauges, controls and whatnot) you saw in software. Big difference.

My first simulator ride was in the early 70's at McChord AFB (Tacoma) in a C-141 Starlifter. The computer room was the size of a double garage filled with Link analog hardware. This monster had servo's mounted on cards turning potentiometers to implement non-linear functions. The cockpit was real, except there was no visual. The windscreens were frosted white to simulate an in-the-cloud experience. This was a year before I got my PP license, so my flying was what you'd expect. The coolest thing was the real smoke when I was given a cargo fire. Ha.

This was my first flight sim. Spent hours flying this.

16k of memory! Brings back fond memories watching this. I still have the ZX81 somewhere, I think. I hope.Regards,Pete Smith, UK

This was my first flight sim. Spent hours flying this.

16k of memory! Brings back fond memories watching this. I still have the ZX81 somewhere, I think. I hope.Regards,Pete Smith, UK

I think that was also on the Timex Synclair 1000 (not sure I remember the spelling). That was the first comp type thing I ever owned. It hooked up to the TV and you sat trying to program pages of code copied from the book, just to see something as little as a ball roll across the screen. It was a nightmare, one mispelled word or space missed would lead to it not working and without mention of where the discrepency was... Thank God for upgrades, both in FS as well as computers in general :)

Ohhh! I did not dare to mention this one because I thought nobody would remember it!2 things come to my mind with this picture: 1) My fingers aching after hours of coding with those rubber keys and the impossible combinations you had to use to type some commands. 2) The orgasmic sensation I have every single time I find I can recover the work of hours after loss of power because all the software nowadays has the autosave feature. If you want to know what rage is type in a ZX for hours and then have someone running into the power cord.. Something else that comes to my mind is how weird it felt to fly an airplane with the keys yet with practice you got really proficient with it. Today nobody would even think of a flight simulator without a Joystick yet you might remember C64 got Joysticks far sooner than PC's did. So i'm not lying if I say those of us from the early days have probably a few thousand hours of "Key" time as PIC. I'm sure many of you did as me and turned of the sound to pretend shutting down the engines on arrival since there was no such an option in the simulator. Even today FSX has the option to make "bateries last indefinitely" and that comes from the early versions with startup procedures where you had to start the engines within a few minutes to prevent the bateries from dying. Now we have APU, GPU, RAT, etc.. Ok, I know, enough battle stories from the old days!

I started in the Spectrum 48K Flight simulator... and then jumped to the FS5.1 when i finally had a PC.What can i say... things we get for granted now were just in our imagination 20 years ago.Companies like PMDG played a very important role in making it all possible. We just have to say tks for someone in 1997 decided to go for this kind of business.Regards,M

I also started in Spectrum 48K as LPPT_man then Amstrad CPC128 with FP (Fighter Pilot) bothowned by my uncleFirst "sim" computer was an MSX I with "Flight Path 737" and "737" by MIRORRSOFT.PC flightsim started on a IBM PC/XT @ 4.77 Mhz Green Monochrome Screen- not overclocked (LOL !!!!!)MSFS V2.11 - only 5 airports had ILS capabilityFavorite routes: Boston Logan - Marthas' Vaneyard and backMeigs Field to University of Champain and Back.There was also a lot of subLOGIC ATP version D with ATC and flight assignments with points/ score as FS Passengers.Also there was FLY!II and PMDG 777 and 757 - best ground roll "feeling" though no VC and active camera shake.Sam :-)

to name a few their job was free for a long time : Jason, Robert, Marcho and so on :( ... now with a biggest sim those days are gone too .... :(