Does anyone remember?

[John_Cillis 2,406]

8 hours ago, W2DR said:

Those were the days.....  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avsim.com  . I don't remember when I started here either but it was very early on. My profile says 2003 but I know it was earlier than that. I had a different account back in the early times and would have kept it had Tom and I not "discussed" a couple of pressing issues which led to his sending me on vacation and then deleting the account 😊. Everything worked out in the end and I still remember some later great conversations with Tom about the "incident".....Doug

I remember when my first account was closed as well.  Also remember the Avsim hack when an employee they hired harvested our email addresses and started sending us spam.  I sent Tom proof of his hack, he used an email address I had never given out other than to family and work.  He denied it but the evidence was overwhelming, but I was saddened when we were told he committed suicide, it should not have come to that.   Tom said he hacked into Avsim to get revenge on all of us and Avsim lost a lot, but the site was still saved by many of us donating to the site, and many just praying for a good outcome.  I do not think Tom was ever the same after that, since some accused him of staging the hack, even though I gave Tom the evidence he needed to the contrary, having been a mod at that time, tracking the IP address of the hacker, and linking it back to the file disruption.  It was and still is a touchy subject for many of us and kudos to the admins, volunteering their time, to keeping the site alive for us, controlling the innuendo surrounding the hack and the trolls attacking Avsim then.  I was so glad to get out of modding, would even receive death threats and I gave Tom and the admins the evidence they needed to have them stopped.  Some people took their Avsim access for granted, using the site for free downloads, thinking the world owed them a living.

John

[Paul Golding 92]

20 hours ago, Ted Striker said:

Paul, I think your fantastic 707 panel was one of my first downloads and the beginning of my addiction.

Ted

Thanks Ted.  Nice of you to remember. 

I'm sure at the time, Project Freeware were going to produce a 707, hence me doing the panel, but it never happened.  As the panel and flight model were done, I released the panel with a (what Ron Freimuth and myself thought was) a better flight model to use with another freeware 707 model at the time.

The 707 led into the next (and last) project which became the DF727.

EDIT: Just found the AVSIM 707 review from back then https://www.avsim.com/pages/1201/golding_707/golding_707.html

Edited August 10, 2018 by Paul Golding

[Ted Striker 338]

4 hours ago, Paul Golding said:

The 707 led into the next (and last) project which became the DF727

Yes, I purchased the DF727 also, another masterpiece that I put many hours in. I was hoping that Dreamfleet was going to follow it up with a 707 but lost that hope when CS released theirs.

Ted

[Paul Golding 92]

The CS 707 had no bearing on things (after all the DF727 was released after the CS727).  There were plans for a DC-8 that got quite advanced, plus the FSX 727, but sadly, the real world just got in the way.

[BlueStar 323]

3 hours ago, Paul Golding said:

The CS 707 had no bearing on things (after all the DF727 was released after the CS727).  There were plans for a DC-8 that got quite advanced, plus the FSX 727, but sadly, the real world just got in the way.

Paul,

I always enjoyed your work.  🙂

 

[Camsdad13 64]

On ‎8‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 5:26 AM, Paul Golding said:

I'd say around 98.  I'd released a few freeware panels in 98 both here and at Flightsim and Project Freeware were here at Avsim from the beginning.  Good times.

Paul, I still use some of your panels in fs2004. Your panels were some of the best out there. Years ago you were working on a DC-8 panel if I'm not mistaken. I think it was a payware project right? Thank you very much for your great panels.

[Paul Golding 92]

1 hour ago, Bluestar said:

Paul,

I always enjoyed your work.  🙂

 

Thanks Wilhelm.

[Paul Golding 92]

56 minutes ago, Camsdad13 said:

Paul, I still use some of your panels in fs2004. Your panels were some of the best out there. Years ago you were working on a DC-8 panel if I'm not mistaken. I think it was a payware project right? Thank you very much for your great panels.

You're not mistaken.  I was so pleased with the way the artwork for the cockpit was coming along too, but, as I said above, the real world got in the way for me, and the others that were going to be involved.

[CYXR 257]

Wow... Paul Golding...  Those were good times indeed. In between fs98 and FS2000, eh?! Oh man... Thanks for your great contributions to this hobby.

ben

 

 

[Steve Dra 7,588]

Another old-timer here. Been here since the beginning.  Fondly remember Mike M's site back when I 1st was getting into flightsim on the PC (was an Atari 520ST simmer before that).

Cut my airline teeth on Sublogics' ATP (still have the maroon manual..not the newer blue one).  Flew the wings (and octagon-sided engines with a black disk as the intake) off that yellow 767!

Been painting almost as long, was part of FFG, SGA back then....painting anything and everything Eric modeled.   Seems like a whole 'nother lifetime from the present.  Was looking up old emails and found one mentioning Paul's panels...won't give you the date, but my friend was telling me about the new  Dell machine he just bought running at 1ghz....with a whopping 512 mb of ram and we were running squawkbox on a 56k modem. 

Memories, hehe.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Steve Dra

[CYXR 257]

For sure Steve!

I downloaded many of your repaints. Thanks! The heart of simming has always been it's freeware devs.

Getting it all to work reasonably was almost as fascinating as enjoying it doing it's thing, eh?!

 

bc 

 

[SpiritFlyer 987]

It has been a long time.

My memory just does not seem to go as far back enough. First flight sim was on an Apple 2e (chug...chug...chug). I think my main FS platform when I first joined bulletin boards was FS98, imagine that... Taking off an empty 747 from Megs and landing at O'Hare (over and over again )!

There were good times way back then for sure, but I think we are still the best game in town.

AVSIM still rules!

Spirit Flyer

Stephen

Edited August 14, 2018 by SpiritFlyer

[Mace 1,927]

23 hours ago, SpiritFlyer said:

First flight sim was on an Apple 2e (chug...chug...chug).

So was mine.  I was about 11 years old I guess.  FSII was a dailliance for me at that time though.  I was more into Spy vs. Spy, ACS (the Adventure Construction Set), Bard's Tale, and Applesoft BASIC.

I once started programming my own "flight sim" in Applesoft BASIC.  I got as far as creating a horizon line, that moved with your joystick as you banked/pitched up and down.  I think the simulation of a 3D space was -- either beyond my skills, or was beyond my comprehension.  :)

[John_Cillis 2,406]

1 minute ago, Mace said:

So was mine.  I was about 11 years old I guess.  FSII was a dailliance for me at that time though.  I was more into Spy vs. Spy, ACS (the Adventure Construction Set), Bard's Tale, and Applesoft BASIC.

I once started programming my own "flight sim" in Applesoft BASIC.  I got as far as creating a horizon line, that moved with your joystick as you banked/pitched up and down.  I think the simulation of a 3D space was -- either beyond my skills, or was beyond my comprehension.  🙂

LOL, I did the same thing on my Atari ST.  I managed to create wireframe mountains, lakes and highways in addition to the horizon line and had scenery that stretched in a 200 mile swath from SFO to JFK.  I simulated the speed of an airliner, even programmed equations in to increase groundspeed as I gained altitude.  I learned how to do it by reading books on 3D programming, I enjoyed it, but it was not for public consumption.  I ported it over to the PC, it was a DOS program, used page flipping for animation, I saw the scenery ahead while the next frame was being drawn in the background.

I had to do peeks and pokes, oh so hated by programmers, to get the program to work.  I was able to get about 18 fps, good for the hardware at the time, my sim was much like FS2, but I could not figure out flood fill, so my lakes only had blue borders.  I had to learn about clipping, because once the scenery goes behind you the program has to still think it is there, otherwise there would be a crash. 

I could never do such a project again, I have forgotten just about everything I learned, I only recall the generalities now from my little pet project, way back when.  I first coded the program in gfa basic then ported it to C++ to the PC, using copy/paste, replacing the basic keywords and logic with C++ keywords and logic, so I did not have to reprogram the whole thing.  It was because of that program that I eventually became a software automation tester, since automation test tools use code, mostly Java or C# these days.  I retired early, the drain on my brain was too much, I much preferred it when I was a business systems instructor and road warrior, but companies do online training for their software now, to reduce the expense and need for road warriors like I was.

John