The First Microsoft Flight Simulator
It is difficult to believe these days, but Microsoft Flight Simulator started life decades ago. The current version has developed from that very first version Microsoft Flight Simulator v1.0. Although it was named v1.0 it wasn’t actually the first version of the program.
The Microsoft flight simulator in reality evolved from a number of earlier implementations of flight simulator software. Bruce Artwick is credited with starting the interest and development of flight simulator software back in the 1970′s. He wrote articles that described how 3D computer graphics could be used to simulate flight. People contacted him and wanted to buy a flight simulator that he described in his articles, and he set about to build one.
At this time, computers were becoming less expensive and more accessible to the general public and the combination of his ideas and affordable computers meant that flight simulation software was born. Bruce founded the company Sublogic Corporation to build and sell the software they developed. The first version of the software only ran on the Apple II and TRS-80 and was released in 1980. By todays standards it was very basic, wire frame graphics and a limited area to fly in, but it become a very popular program for its time.
Microsoft flight simulator was born around 1982, when Microsoft licensed the software developed by Sublogic and ported it to the PC. The version was released as version 1.0 and featured major improvements – the wire frame graphics were no more, they were replaced by solid graphics in color. The scenery was also improved, as opposed to just a defined area in which to fly, the scenery was modeled on the real world. It was also the first time that scenery could be added into the program, so that pilots could fly wherever they could obtain scenery files. Additional features that were added for the first time included dynamic weather, so the pilot could experience flying in all weather and wind conditions. It was also possible to set the time of the flight, to gain practice flying during the day or night.
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