From FS1 to FS9

[Katahu]

Ah, yes. The history of the entire FS series. I feel like it's time to review all of the FS versions just so that we can have an idea as to how much has changed over the past decade.

I'm much of a history buff, so can anyone one of you fellas do the honors of starting it off?

[expat]

My first flight was with FS3.1 on a Comadore Amiga. I was king of the world with the extra 512k Ram pack.
I seem to remember that the land was green and the water blue. As for mountains, I only found them by not following the supplied flight charts and then flying into them. I little strange crashing into something at say 10000 feet that was not their.  

Matt

[marick626]

nothing like the good old days.
what am I saying?

[Moach]

oh man!! i have all of those

you forgot FS4.0 which pre-dates the CD-ROM





that's what happened when you crashed back then  ;D

[wji]

It's all here.
Bill
P.S. It took me almost an hour to fill out the latest FS9 survey from Microsoft. How about others?

[awecrj200]

Wow it's amazing how much the graphics have advanced and the flight dynamics!!

[logjam]

Can't give any screenshots but I used FS2 with a 086 and Hercules graphics card back in '86 on a green monitor. Wow did we ever improve on that.

[Pegase]

When, around 1985 I bought my Apple II, I  bought immadiately the flight simulator of Sub Logic..
I  remember there was two graphic modes the "High quality"  which gave something like plain surfaces with 16 nuances of grey or the quick mode made with wireframe giving something like 2 or 3 fps except when landing on meighs where due to the complex scenery it was less than 1 fps

After this, around 1988 ?  I bought an Atari ST 1024. Almost same look but way faster, almost fluid in wireframe mode and  more sceneries, I remember the tower bridge in London I liked to play flying under.

Came after the PC version 4 ? withe an awfull sound going  out of the PC speaker it was URGENT to press Q .

The flight sim for Windows 95 brought big changes with credible sounds, sceneries, aircrafts and add on on the net and thouse clouds made of cubic white boxes

I bought after the 98 version with nice cloud effects with th 3D accelerator board but always crashing (I mean the computer, not the plane) and 2002 which except the Concorde did not bring anything new except the lessons and checkrides. And an ATC which did not know that on some parts of th world, the ground may be higher than o fts...

I got the the 2004 since this year when I bought my 3.2 Ghz machine.

I  love the graphic enhancement on the clouds an the grounfd aspect when reached 2-3000 fts., the working ATC, despite some limitations and bugs and  the integrated flight planer.

I would hope some improvements on the airliner panels which still look naf in comparison with some freeware add ons or X-plane,  a map view which does not pause the flight , more multiplayer possibilities like school or crew mode. and a kind of "flight evaluator" giving a summary and quotation for the key points of the flight.

And off course a cute stewardess bringing the coffee

 8)

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

nothing like the good old days.
what am I saying?


fs 2002

How in heavens name is your FS8 Screenie so crisp like FS9?

I would love to take screenies like that in FS2002!!!

Cheers,
Ashar

[MIKE JG]

Waaaaaaaaay over the size limit !!!!

1024x750 pixles

What is so hard about sticking to these limits

[chomp_rock]

How in heavens name is your FS8 Screenie so crisp like FS9?

I would love to take screenies like that in FS2002!!!

Cheers,
Ashar

How'd it get to be that crisp? By not compressing it that's how! That is also why it is way over the size limit!

[Katahu]

Everything about flight simulator has grown real fast. It's barely been 2 and a half decades and already we jumped from wireframe scenery to full-blown texture enhancements and complex utilities.

Wow, it makes me feel old.

[Moach]

heh, i remember flying patterns around meigs field on FSW95...

i was so clueless, i used the autopilot to make 90 degree turns until i was lined up for landing

then i would try to land as smoothly as possible

ahh the early days it's been almost 10 years now

my first experience was with FS4.0 (1989), we didn't have a joystick back then, we has to fly using the four arrow keys, landing was an ordeal
i used an old laptop that my father gave to me... a 286, i guess, black and white screen and windows 3.1... things have been improving in this front

i was born in 1985... started when i was 7, so i've been playing FS for about 13 years now... oh my... think of the amount of flight hours spent....

i must have enough FS flight hours to fly commercial jetliners.... (if they let people with FS pilot certificates fly, taht is...)

now i run a "mighty" Athlon xp200, 1 gig ram and a radeon 9800 xt 256mb graphics card... and FS comes in 4 cd-roms and occupies about 3 gigs on initial installations.... things sure have changed... fs4 was only one white diskette with 2 files in it.....

i still have my copy of FS4, im keeping all my old FlightSims, what if someday someone wants to make a museum of FS?

cheers

Moach

[Fozzer]

Mercenary: Escape From Targ.

Sinclair Spectrum 48k. !984.





Paul...Uncle Clive's ultimate fun computer...The Speccy... ...!

P.S. I wanted to include Gunship, (1984), but it has a complicated tape loader, (two tapes!)... ...!
LOL...!

[MattNW]

And what about the earliest efforts. I remember playing a MS flight simulator in the Coco. Just green lines on a black background.