A REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, BROUGHT FRIGHTFULLY INTO THE REAL WORLD ...I have a small collection of flight sim literature going back to the early days of our hobby. A few minutes ago, I picked up and began thumbing though a small spiral bound book entitled "40 Great Flight Simulator Adventures",written in 1985 by Charles Gulick and published by Compute Books.The book is a collection of specific "adventures" designed for the early Commodore and Apple versions of FS, sims with very limited graphics that required a great deal of imagination. Gulick tried to help simmers amplify that imagination with his very good writing and scenarios.As I thumbed through the book, I came to a chapter called "Threading the Needle. It describes a trip from Renton Municipal to downtown Seattle and a tour of the Space Needle. I remembered having gone through this and other scenarios with FS4 on my Commodore 64. As I was reading, I was thinking about how very visual this would be in FS9 and its rich graphics engine.I turned the page to another adventure, this one taking a flight from Olympia to Mt. Rainier and a secret which I suspect exploited a bug in the early FS4 and its contemporaries. Again, I thought about the flight in FS9 and how it would look.I turned the page again, and this time, I winced. The sketchy screen image in front of my eyes was clearly The Twin Towers. I knew it before reading a word of the adventure, entitled "We Aim to Please." The idea was to fly your plane between the two towers, without striking either one. If you missed, it was only a sim.And, that's where my browsing came to an end with a sharp break from the imagination of a gifted writer to the reality of the horror we all endured on 9-11. I'm not sure this has much of a point, except the juxtaposition of flight sim fantasy with an ugly incident in our very real world. Thanks for letting me share these thoughts with you, my friends, in the sim community. Sherm

I remember that book well, as well as Compute's other publications for the C-64. Although my C64 is long since gone, I still have one or two Compute books floating around.That said, there's reminders about tragedy everywhere. A day before the '89 Bay Area earthquake, I took a chartered sailboat ride on Lake Tahoe. The skipper was trying to sound like a local, telling the passengers (I guess he figured none of us were from the area) not to worry about earthquakes--he'd been alive "a long time" and never experienced one. The following day I drove home to the Bay Area--two hours after I arrived the World Series quake hit.Books are written, people say things, photos are taken....all contain ties and reminders to events that happen later on. I've learned to take them in the context they were said or written. Otherwise, life can get "stuck in a rut" as there's enough imagery out there to remind us of any tragedy. Today, I'd pick up a book like the one mentioned, and remember how easy I was to please, given FS-II's graphics, and also I'd remember how much fun the C-64/FS-II combo was... -John

I don't disagree with a thing you are saying. Our hobby brings a great pleasure even as we remember the real world.Sherm

It's the double impact of hindsight - bringing into sharp releief the things you wish you'd said - and the things you wish you'd NEVER said.Allcott