A good day to everyone,See attached picture. Just wondering how many others have taken the same ride I have over the years. Both programs purchased new. For those youngsters reading this the floppy disk on the left is a 5 1/4 disk that contained the whole Microsoft Flight Simulator program, all 128k of it...............JayDub

I started with the commodore 64 version.....and then there was "final flight" on the vic-20. Nice shot! Thru my copies away long ago though-probably should have held on.

My first was for the ZX81 and came on a tape cassette. I used to miss the runway then too, some things never change but at least I get to do it with style now. Still have the ZX81 I wonder if I could find the flightsim.Andrew Brown

First go was on a tandy, it was black and white lines. Then the C-64 sublogic FS. ATP was another good one, first use of ATC that worked rather well and a progression up the ranks via checkrides. Amazing for the day.Ian.

Solo Flight for the C-64 ruled them all.Bryan

To all,I didn't realize that I was so late into the game. My first computer was an IBM clone called the ITT Extra. It had a 8088 processor with a 10MB hard drive and 256k of system RAM. My fancy RGB monitor displayed 3 colors. As of 6 months ago the system still worked. When I look back on it I had as much fun then as I do now. I never would have believed how far flight simulations have come. Also when you stop to think of it we don't pay much more for these fantastic programs than we 15 years ago. A pretty good deal I think. I would have included a picture of my other MSFS versions on the shelf but they would not fit well into the photo.JayDub

My first flight sim was:Here it is in action :)I saw reviews of this sim in "Bug Byte", a popular computer magazine of that era. I begged dad to let me have it, since he was into this sort of thing, I didn't have to twist his arm to get it... we did however have a hard time convincing mom that this would make me a better person when I eventually hit puberty and all that.I got it home, watched it load for 7 minutes, then watched my dad fly this new ultra-real simulator as he taught me about flaps, ILS approaches and using power to control climb/descend rates. The sim was incredible.... my only other 'simulator' was Dambusters, and that was pretty extravagant really, even though the visuals were limited to a single line of dots across the screen to represent the horizon. Heh... Dambusters... what a trip. Check it out [a href=http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001229" target="_blank]here[/a]Around the same time frame as the "Flight Simulation" game, I also tried my hand at Fighter Pilot. That game was pretty neat, but like the other sims of the day, the mountains and other objects were actually invisible and you had to rely on a printed map of the 'world' to know where they are :) Later, I was treated to a Space Shuttle sim, circa 1984. I loved that game, it was sooooo advanced for its day :)All in all though, these simulations showed me that flight was something that could keep my interest, it was something that kept me wanting to learn more and more. So in a way, those old games really helped me out, because if I didn't learn early on that flight is a whole lot more than 'push to dive, pull to climb', I would probably be still playing SEGA style games :)

How cool! That was my first flight simulation game too (at the meager age of 12) - that was enough to get me hooked. I was already into programming at the time, so would love writing my own (albeit simple!) flight simulation games too.The other thing that really got me hooked, was at age 12, I was able to sit with the pilots on a flight to Menorca on a BAC 111 (and then later on a 757 at like age 16). I loved it! Pity they don't let you do that anymore, but I totally understand why.My first version of what was/became the MSFS series we love was SubLogics Flight Simulator 3 (on the Atari ST) and then later Flight Simulator 4 on the PC. Only one I have skipped in the series was flight simulator 95.Part of me always wanted to be an airline transport captain - but I decided to go into electronics and computers instead eventually, flight simulators let me fulfill the rest of my dreams! I have always wanted to get my PPL too - but that's on hold currently due to some health issues, but hopefully I will be able to at some point.If it's the same game, I had the space shuttle one too!It truly is amazing how far these simulations have come, and all the time, I just want more and more and more!FSX is a great addition to the series IMHO, I've not enjoyed a version of it so much since version 5.1 (and FS9 of course)! And the feeling of flight is truly amazing. Though I will say, the one thing I always wanted really came true in FS 2002, ATC, AI planes and proper ground/tower procedures!

Coming to think of it, going to back to my Spectrum days, I remember fighter pilot and dambusters too! I'm originally from the UK, though from the times I post, some of you might have worked out I live in the USA now, moved here about 8 1/2 years ago. I now recall fighter pilot and dambusters, I had those too.I remember fighter pilot for it's 'tape style' airspeed and altitude gauges, always thought they were cool. I remember my friends with other computers saying - why does it have no sound? LOL - well for those who remember the old Speccy, it's little ceramic disc speaker could only really make clicks at different rates - sound was not it's forte (until the game Fairlight - not a flight simulator - came around, that was some clever programming!).And dambusters - course I'd seen the movie and new of those missions, so had to have it - I liked that one because of all the different panels there was with lots of buttons and switches! Made you feel like you were in a real airplane, but the outside view was very basic for sure.Ahh..reminiscence is a wonderful thing!

I had that same machine but not the clone. What a screamer!! The hard drive might hold 1 aircraft now. First one I tried some flight program on was a Timex Sinclair. 2nd was the Commodore 64. The people in these forums that do nothing but complain don't know how good they have it now. Most of them probably couldn't find a command prompt if they had to!

Nice. I'm an old UK man myself, came to live in Canada when I was 15, grew up on the outskirts of Glasgow.I remember Fairlight well actually, I must have spent two weeks trying to copy my friends copy. I tried my own tape-to-tape method, then my parents "hi-fi", then my uncles, then my other uncles. It was a while before I actually got a copy that would fully load. I don't actually recall much about Fairlight, the game, as opposed to the whole farce of me trying to copy it :) I was a kid, I think we all did things like that back then.I remember Ghostbusters. That game surprised most Speccy owners because it was thee first ever instance of full speech on that platform :) It was hard to make out, but there it was.... "GHOST BUSTERS.... hah ah ahah aha ahha hahah ah a"... then the music kicked in :) Oh what a trip.I agree though, Dambusters seemed incredibly realistic because it had several 'stations' that you could switch between and actually do stuff with.

That's false advertising on the box art!!talk about misleading :-rollThank you for posting the pics, nice.

Hi Kevin, ah, another transplant to 'over the pond'! When I worked in robotics I did a fairly big project for Chivas Regal up in Glasgow, was a fun time --- but cold! The building we were working in didn't have the back walls fully finished at that time, and it was winter time, so snowy, and worse, just plain cold and windy!!! Still I enjoyed my time up there. I originally grew up in Northamptonshire, which as you probably know is in the East Midlands, about 100 miles North of London.I'll admit, I have very fond memories of my Spectrum days, and yeah I think like all kids back then, we tended to copy our tapes and exchange them with friends! I remember when the game producers started to reduce the level of the data on the tapes, thus reducing the S/N ratio to make it harder to copy them, and yeah, you would end up having to try copying them on a variety of different machines till you got one that would work! And then came speed loaders!!!Considering the sound and color (attribute clash!) limitations of that machine, there really were some great games. I remember some of the other games that first had 'sampled' sounds - amazing you could make them out at all considering the memory limitation and the poor speaker. There was a ###### shooting game (and a darts one) which I don't recall the names of, but I remember one of them said "good shot" and the guy winking at you at the same time!!!! LOLFun days - especially for a kid!If you really want a trip down memory lane - this is a great site, talks about Sinclair and all of his products (and business ethics!)...makes for some fascinating reading when you get some spare time! Especially the QL fiasco![a href=]http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/contents.htm[/a]

I'm also from the Glasgow area and came to Canada when I was 15. My first computer was the Apple II plus which I built myself, and I remember having to load the memory from a cassette tape. You had to adjust the cassette volume so you would'nt lose bits. I then bought an Atari, which was also ahead of its time as far as desktop concepts were concerned. I seem to remember using a game called Falcon quite a lot.Next was an IBM machine which I thought was a step back in those days, but was the standard "business" machine.I used another program called Air Transport Pilot for a while. I have all the versions of MSFS from 95 on. We've certainly come a long way in 25 years of desktop computing. I used to work on full scale simulations at CAE.In those days we had mainframe computers with 32k magnetic core memory,and the programmers had to be good, to drive a total instrument package on a 747 with full motion, control forces and an instructors panel.Those were the days!!!Ron

Tandy RL 1000. & LHX Attack Chopper. THAT was THE sim to have.System Specs:P4 3.0SB LiveATI Radeon X800 GTO (256)1 Gig DDR RAM