Where were you on November 11, 1982?

[David Mills]

Where were you -- and what were you doing -- on November 11, 1982, the day Microsoft Flight Simulator was first introduced 40 years ago?

[V1ROTA7E]

I wasn't even a thought yet. lol

[fppilot]

21 minutes ago, David Mills said:

Where were you -- and what were you doing -- on November 11, 1982, the day Microsoft Flight Simulator was first introduced 40 years ago?

At the Computerland store in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was purchasing a copy to evaluate for Autumn Revolution, the name of the Tulsa IBM User Group and publisher of a national newsletter of the same name.  I was not an IBM employee as were most other members of the group.  I understood that "Autumn Revolution" was the IBM internal code name for the IBM PC development.

[sniper31]

I was trying to learn how to program BASIC on my Commodore 64 and playing Choplifter as there was no MS flight sim available for the C64 just yet. As soon as it was available though, I got it and dug into that nice manual and those 4 paper maps I miss so much 🙂 

[rick celik]

I was 9 years away from Earth

[ryanbatc]

1 hour ago, V1ROTA7E said:

I wasn't even a thought yet. lol

I was in my mommy's tummy!

[laserit]

I remember Bruce Artwick and Simlogic back in the early eighties

Sublogic 😉

[JBDB-MD80]

working on a farm somewhere in Maryland at the age of 12.

[Max Kraus]

5th Grade... mucking around with my Atari 2600 that I won in one of those scratch contests at McDonalds ! 

[penta_a]

I was first year of high school, didn't even know what a PC is then, traveled to the US for AVIONICS diploma 1986 and then I knew what A PC is and most amazingly what a flight simulator is, oh boy, the old good days.

[Bert Pieke]

Waiting for the IBM PCJr to launch... which I bought in 1984 along with my first copy of "Microsoft Flight Simulator for IBM PC and PCJr".  Still have the 149 page handbook.

[fppilot]

28 minutes ago, laserit said:

I remember Bruce Artwick and Simlogic back in the early eighties

Sublogic 😉

A group of us on the before internet Prodigy online service in the early 1990's formed Sunair, Airways of Imagination, the first ever virtual airline, and three of us met with Bruce and Stu Moment at an office at KCMI to inquire of al things, if they could do a custom Sunair paint job for us on their Flight Assignment:ATP simulator aircraft.  Perhaps also the first forey into custom liveries.  They declined as their focus was on keeping ATP fully current on airways and IAP's.  That was shortly after their success in litigation with MS.  Bruce and Stu should clearly be the first inductees into any flight simulator hall of fame.  That Sunair group later migrated to Compuserve after the demise of Prodigy.

There is a lot of rich history to this flight simulator endeavor.

[Mace]

I was in 4th grade, that would have been a Thursday so I was in school.  Couldn't get out of class and didn't have any money of my own anyway.  I was about 3 years away from discovering SubLogic FS II.  In 1982 the only flight sim I knew was a paper airplane.  And I made my share in those days.

[Mace]

10 minutes ago, fppilot said:

A group of us on the before internet Prodigy online service in the early 1990's formed Sunair, Airways of Imagination, the first ever virtual airline, and three of us met with Bruce and Stu Moment at an office at KCMI to inquire of al things, if they could do a custom Sunair paint job for us on their Flight Assignment:ATP simulator aircraft.  Perhaps also the first forey into custom liveries.  They declined as their focus was on keeping ATP fully current on airways and IAP's.  That was shortly after their success in litigation with MS.  Bruce and Stu should clearly be the first inductees into any flight simulator hall of fame.  That Sunair group later migrated to Compuserve after the demise of Prodigy.

There is a lot of rich history to this flight simulator endeavor.

I believe ATP had a Short 360?  Or 330?  I seem to remember flying one in ATP, but it could be something else I'm thinking of.

[David Mills]

By an amazing coincidence, the first operational flight of the Space Shuttle was also Thursday, November 11, 1982, the exact day that Microsoft Flight Simulator was introduced. There had been four previous manned test flights of the Shuttle, but November 11 marked the first operational flight, STS-5. STS-5 marked the first time in history that more than three astronauts were carried into space together, and the first time that a satellite payload and human beings were launched aboard the same vehicle. I was watching the liftoff onsite from the Kennedy Space Center on November 11, 1982. So I'll be joyously celebrating both 40th anniversaries this Friday.