Hacker News Reader

Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

1982? Was that version already 3D? That's earlier than I thought.

subLogic flight simulator is even older (first Apple II version in 1979) https://youtu.be/uvvfJ60gIf0 Microsoft licensed it to make MS FS.

Someone showed me (subLogic) Flight Simulator II, on a C-64 I think before I had a computer. I finally got a used IBM PC as my first computer (4.77 MHz 8088, CGA graphics, 20 MB hard drive) and MS FS version 3 and played the hell out of it, despite how badly it ran. When I installed it at my mom’s work on a 386 with VGA it was like a whole new game.

It was. The popular text adventure format at the time just doesn't work well in a flight simulator for some reason.

> read instruments

Your altimeter reads FL090, your compass reads 245. Airspeed is at 120 knots, pitch is 10 above the horizon. Engine is at 70% power.

You hear a kitten meow on guard.

> read instruments

Your altimeter reads FL090, your compass reads 245. Airspeed is at 70 knots, pitch is 20 above the horizon. Engine is at 70% power.

You hear a stall warning.

> yoke forward

> throttle max

Scary stuff, this could work!

Slap it onto a MUD engine, and you can have multiplayer air dogfights! :)

There are air traffic control simulators which are somewhat like this

The only flight sim I remember from those days was Sopwith, a 2D side-view game where you fly a Sopwith Camel through all sorts of crazy loops.

First 3D game I saw was Elite's wireframe spaceflight.

You don't need graphics for a simulator.

https://archive.org/details/msdos_747-400_Precision_Simulato...

I read through Don Eyles apollo memoir Sunburst and Luminary- great book. In the book he describes their simulator for the lunar landing (essentially a test harness for the landing code) which consisted of inputs of coordinates and speeds, and gave printed output of thrust changes and expected position over time. Mind blowing for someone so used to visual representations.

This is actually correct. You don't need visual fidelity for a good simulation, nor physical fidelity. The important thing is that your mind and your body goes through the motions. You don't need to actually believe you're doing the thing, just practise the motions, cognitively and physically.

Played it on my 1982 zx spectrum 32k!

You may be thinking of Psion's Flight Simulation game [0] on the ZX Spectrum 48K

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Simulation_(Psion_softw...

I'm pretty sure it was from Microsoft. I may have even the paper instructions, i'll search for them :-) Wikipedia: "FS1 Flight Simulator is a 1979 video game published by Sublogic for the Apple II. A TRS-80 version followed in 1980. FS1 Flight Simulator is a flight simulator in the cockpit of a slightly modernized Sopwith Camel.[2] FS1 is the first in a line of simulations from Sublogic which, beginning in 1982, were also sold by Microsoft as Microsoft Flight Simulator."

I played it on the 48K.

I can't believe there was a version that run on the 16K ZX81 as well!

48k of course, not 32k :-)

Rubber keys?

yep (wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum)

I had the spectrum plus. Still 48k, but a better keyboard

Reply on news.ycombinator.com