Microsoft Flight Simulator - How It Was Born
Thursday, July 15th, 2010It could be difficult to believe, but Flight Simulator X from Microsoft had its beginnings decades ago as Microsoft Flight Simulator version 1.0. The current version has developed from that very first version Microsoft Flight Simulator v1.0. Although it was named version 1.0, the Microsoft version of the flight simulator software wasn’t actually the first version of the program.
The Microsoft simulator actually evolved from earlier software developed to simulate flight. Back in the 1970’s, Bruce Artwick began to get interested in using computer graphics for flight simulation. He wrote articles that described how 3D computer graphics could be used to simulate flight. After realizing there was indeed a market for a program that simulated flying an aircraft Bruce set about to make his ideas real.
At this point, 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. It was a very limited simulator, had very basic graphics and it covered only a small area, but it turned out to be one of the most popular computer games of the time.
In 1982 Microsoft got interested in expanding its games and entertainment products and reached an agreement to license the software developed by Sublogic and adapt 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 modeled on the real world, an improvement over the previous defined area that was available to fly over. It was also possible to add scenery into the program and expand the world in which you could fly. Other features that made the simulator more realistic were adding variable weather that could be random or chosen by the user. The pilot could also choose what time of day they were flying, so they could experience night flight if they so desired.
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