I can run Flight Unlimited 3 on windows 7 with a few minor issues. I bet fs98 could work on 7 with some work (never tried it) I use it on an old windows 98 machine I still have to fly the old stuff like pro pilot. I will say fly2k works great on windows 7.   Flying these old games takes me back to being a kid growing up in the tech boom. The 90's were awsome in pretty much everyway. Don't laugh but I have an old compaq that still works which we got in 1996 it was pretty much top of the line at that time with a 100MHZ processor and 32MB of ram how times have changed haha.

Fire up WinUAE and run Flight Simulator II

Looking for an emulation of my old home(!) computer to suck in my very first flightsim from a cassette tape recorder.

 

Needed to upgrade from 16KB (KB!) to 48KB first to get that advanced piece of software engineering running.

 

Loading from tape would take some 20 min ... just to find out an error occurred and try all over again ...

FS98 was my first civilian flight sim. Before then, I couldn't see the point of a flight sim that didn't involve bombing someone or shooting someone down, but so many people were using and enjoying MSFS, that I had to find out about it. In the UK aviation press, a lot of flight schools in the US advertise their courses, always citing the good weather that enables you to fly every day ( rather than just the last Wednesday in July, as in this dreary weather-beaten island )....so I looked at one advert and flew from that Florida airfield. Taking the default Cessna 172 seriously, I was hooked after a few circuits. I then bought Abacus' Co-Pilot navigation software and flew to California. I've never looked back.

Got fs98 original disk as I got it as x-mas present in 1997, but first msfs played with was fs. I have and threw one of discs away by accident while cleaning house, but have 2002 and still use fs2004 as it got items fsx does not have. fs98 maybe fiddle with it lol then all think fsx is heaven. fs98 abandon ware most part

I think i would rather be kneed in the groin repeatedly than use anything pre-XP, but it would be interesting to pull out some old games. I still have Chuck Yeagers Air Combat on 3.5" diskettes! Loved that game.

I still have Falcon 3.0, EF2000, Total Air War (F22), Jane's F15/F18/Israel Air Force, and MicroProse F14 to name a few.  The first FS version that I owned was version 3 back in 1986.  Outside of FS imagine true updates to all the great combat sims we had...

I still have Falcon 3.0, EF2000, Total Air War (F22), Jane's F15/F18/Israel Air Force, and MicroProse F14 to name a few.  The first FS version that I owned was version 3 back in 1986.  Outside of FS imagine true updates to all the great combat sims we had...

I though Janes's fighter anthology was awesome its a shame there are no more Jane's titles

I though Janes's fighter anthology was awesome its a shame there are no more Jane's titles

Too complicated for most people I guess. I don't know what happened to fighter simulations, they just stopped making them on the level they were once produced. I would hate to think gamers were just that dense they couldn't catch on. Role playing games had the staying power sims didn't enjoy for whatever reason. Like Flight, games like Ace Combat is the gutted experience on the Xbox people seem to prefer. I did hear mention fighter simulations were too expensive to produce so they stopped. I find that hard to believe as the blue print had already been laid down with Falcon 4 and EF2000. Just build on that. With Flight Simulator discontinued any serious effort at PC flight simulation is all but gone. XPlane is a mixed bag as to where it will end up.

Too complicated for most people I guess. I don't know what happened to fighter simulations, they just stopped making them on the level they were once produced. I would hate to think gamers were just that dense they couldn't catch on. Role playing games had the staying power sims didn't enjoy for whatever reason. Like Flight, games like Ace Combat is the gutted experience on the Xbox people seem to prefer. I did hear mention fighter simulations were too expensive to produce so they stopped. I find that hard to believe as the blue print had already been laid down with Falcon 4 and EF2000. Just build on that. With Flight Simulator discontinued any serious effort at PC flight simulation is all but gone. XPlane is a mixed bag as to where it will end up.

 

My observation over time was that:

 

People kept pushing for the sims to become more and more (and then even more) technically oriented...........

 

Without patience for (RTFM!!!!!!!!!) or much concern (Go back to your PlayStation) about the absolutely immense learning curve being created for those just entering the hobby. People then stopped entering the hobby in the numbers needed to support development of said sims, as the sims simultaneously gained a reputation for being difficult and boring.

 

Bye bye sims.

 

Though I never got a chance to play it, my take was that Fs98 and other Microsoft successes were created at a time when flight simulation still maintained a sustainable balance between simulation and accessibility.

Too complicated for most people I guess. I don't know what happened to fighter simulations, they just stopped making them on the level they were once produced. I would hate to think gamers were just that dense they couldn't catch on. Role playing games had the staying power sims didn't enjoy for whatever reason. Like Flight, games like Ace Combat is the gutted experience on the Xbox people seem to prefer. I did hear mention fighter simulations were too expensive to produce so they stopped. I find that hard to believe as the blue print had already been laid down with Falcon 4 and EF2000. Just build on that. With Flight Simulator discontinued any serious effort at PC flight simulation is all but gone. XPlane is a mixed bag as to where it will end up.

 

Its sad but people want mindless games like MW3 and TV like Honey Boo Boo.

My observation over time was that:

 

People kept pushing for the sims to become more and more (and then even more) technically oriented...........

 

Without patience for (RTFM!!!!!!!!!) or much concern (Go back to your PlayStation) about the absolutely immense learning curve being created for those just entering the hobby. People then stopped entering the hobby in the numbers needed to support development of said sims, as the sims simultaneously gained a reputation for being difficult and boring.

 

Bye bye sims.

 

Though I never got a chance to play it, my take was that Fs98 and other Microsoft successes were created at a time when flight simulation still maintained a sustainable balance between simulation and accessibility.

To me there was never a learning curve but my dad helped me alot getting started I was 8 and knew how to navigate on VOR's and fly an ILS.  I think most people get bored with flight sims like FSX because there's really nothing to do one you hit the AP(I usally do home work on my laptop) and FSX killed alot of people off sims because their computers couldn't run it.

I actually suspect the beginning of the loss of general interest in flight sims occurred years before FSX. I remember discussions all over the web as people who had played sims and enjoyed them for years found the genre sailing further and further beyond their reach.

 

Its Falcon 4.0 that was a breaking point for many. Did you see the size of that manual???!!! For people with limited time between job/school or family and other life pursuits, the investment in time requested by these programs was getting further and further out of hand, driven by the desires of those wanting to get as close to being real pilots as technologically possible. Unfortunately that left the vast majority of those who also shared an interest in aviation/simulation (and their money) increasingly further behind and feeling out in the cold.

 

Its not just coincidence that the Falcon Franchise, also released in 1998 AFAIK ended there. (except for the dedicated true faithful, the modders)

 

​Microsoft sailed on for several years more through and past Fs98 by maintaining accessibility to a broad range of users, and though its rarely mentioned, these are the same people who also successfully brought us through several iterations of the very entertaining Combat Flight Simulator, which was also released around 1998 I believe.

My observation over time was that:

 

People kept pushing for the sims to become more and more (and then even more) technically oriented...........

 

Without patience for (RTFM!!!!!!!!!) or much concern (Go back to your PlayStation) about the absolutely immense learning curve being created for those just entering the hobby. People then stopped entering the hobby in the numbers needed to support development of said sims, as the sims simultaneously gained a reputation for being difficult and boring.

 

Bye bye sims.

If that's the case (which very well may be true) as I've said before FSX killed it. Not only was the basic concept a challenge to get into with high end GA and Airliners but getting the software to actually run at acceptable frame rates was a whole other issue that didn't start resolving itself until the last couple of years. Today I've come to the conclusion in order for me to have a smooth transition into FSX I'll need one of these custom built FSX systems:

 

http://www.jetlinesystems.com/

 

From there I can get about the business of setting scenery up the way I want it and buying all the aircraft I like (which is a task in itself). The latter part is what users should be concerned with not an over clocked to hell machine they need to manually setup (voiding out the warranty and setting themselves up for a hardware replacement faster than they normally would). That's how we've lost people. You shouldn't have to do that to get a piece of software to run decently.

I still have Falcon 3.0, EF2000, Total Air War (F22), Jane's F15/F18/Israel Air Force, and MicroProse F14 to name a few.  The first FS version that I owned was version 3 back in 1986.  Outside of FS imagine true updates to all the great combat sims we had...

 

My first FS was FS II on a Commodore SX-64.  The SX-64 was Commodore's attempt to create a "portable computer".  It had a four inch screen so the simulator was very small--but I could still be hypnotized by watching the sim.  I actually sold that computer to a little boy for a small amount, as his first computer.  I often wonder if it launched a career for him in the IT industry.  My Commodore certainly launched my career in the IT industry--at the suggestion of my oldest brother who thought it would teach me a good set of skills.

 

John

FS2002 also had overcast clouds that actually obscured your view and made everything foggy. That even now hasn't been recreated in FS9/FSX.

In FS9 set cloud coverage density manually to 8 in your fs9.cfg and you will have all the overcast you can handle.  It is an AA killer though!

-P