The Golden Age of Flight Simulators

[dighost 25]

Just discovered this video and thought it would be a good break from Flight. Its from a show done in 1990, and they showcase FS4, and just about every other flight simulator of the time. When the 386 was a state of the art computer. For the more youthful, take notice that store shelves used to be fully stocked with many simulators once upon a time.

Edited January 13, 2012 by dighost

[JohnFromCO 15]

Egghead Software, that place brings back memories.

[NoahBryant 26]

"Very realistic graphics" haha so funny

[Rimshot 1,142]

Great to watch. Thanks for the link.

[Guest]

Awesome!!! "very realistic graphics"! LOL! Thanks for posting! Really enjoyed this! Brought back some good memories...Boy, isn't it weird that back then I actually thought those games look GREAT? Was I BLIND? :(

[eSimmer 10]

Just discovered this video and thought it would be a good break from Flight. Its from a show done in 1990, and they showcase FS4, and just about every other flight simulator of the time. When the 386 was a state of the art computer. For the more youthful, take notice that store shelves used to be fully stocked with many simulators once upon a time.

Great find and thank you for posting. Gilman (chopstick) is Falcon 4.0 and more from before.The thing about those days was that whatever came before was a sort of preview of more "realism" to come.I still have my brown and white Sub-logic manual: I may still have the floppies. I still have the first falcon,f-19, f-15 ect,etc.Thanks man, Now I'm nostalgic. Edited January 13, 2012 by eSimmer

[simmerhead 885]

Yep, those were exciting days :). Immersion was all in the head and not on the screen.

[Rush1169 0]

Great post - thank you! Flight Assignment: ATP was awesome

[N738NM 0]

What a throwback! Great find. FS in 1991? I was flying MSFS 4.0 on the PC and playing Falcon on the Amiga 500 back then. And, those were exciting times in the computer industry, too. I was involved in as a trade show manager for a venture-funded software startup back then (Comdex, Comdex/Spring, PC Expo...I'll have to go back to look at the rest of my show schedule). So, many memories that I'm stuck in some sort of time warp now and can't get out. Great post. Thanks, dighost!

[Toys_R_Us 0]

Bringing this up to today.... Bob

[Guest]

Yep, those were exciting days :). Immersion was all in the head and not on the screen.

Hm, well, I actually LOVED what I saw on my screen back then. Compared to what we had in the mid eighties, it looked AWESOME!This makes me think about how we will look back on today in 20 years time... Will we look at FSX and see what we now see in that video...? Awful unrealistic graphics? Utterly low res textures? A flat screen...? "What were we thinking back in 2012?!?"Flight simming... it's only just begun if you aks me. :(

[Attila 2]

Hm, well, I actually LOVED what I saw on my screen back then. Compared to what we had in the mid eighties, it looked AWESOME!This makes me think about how we will look back on today in 20 years time... Will we look at FSX and see what we now see in that video...? Awful unrealistic graphics? Utterly low res textures? A flat screen...? "What were we thinking back in 2012?!?"Flight simming... it's only just begun if you aks me. :(

Actually, the great thing back then was that each iteration of a game tended to be better than before. Developers were trying to improve their games by giving us more features and deeper experiences. They were hobbled by the hardware, but they pushed it to the limit.Then, we could get excited about things that were new and our hobbies were moving in the right direction.Now, a lot of innovation has stopped and became a niche in many genres of computer gaming. The entire field is devolving back to who can create the simpler game with the least features and the skimpiest user guide. We have the hardware to play really stunning and complex games, but what's the point if many games can actually run in a browser.No wonder that board games are coming back in fashion again.

[speedbird2001 0]

Very interesting thanks for sharing.

[vololiberista 205]

I like the reference to "realistic graphics"vololiberista

[N738NM 0]

Bringing this up to today.... Bob

Now, that's funny! But, the mouse on the left should be replaced with an XBox controller. Seriously, thanks for the chuckle.