The Behind the Scenes of how this documentary was made is on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/bts-making-video-116374848 It's also the best way to support the channel!
I usually have a lot of criticisms of a video featuring the technology I specialized in during my career, especially when the video is made by someone much younger. Frankly, this is one of the best videos covering this history and development of software I have ever seen. While I could quibble with some of the comments about Apple and that era in general, I won't. Well done. I am glad I stumbled upon your channel today and look forward to seeing your other and future videos!
Check out Niantic's (Pokemon Go) latest paper on making a Large Geospatial Model. Something like that could be used for the next version of MSFS. Also, have you seen the AI projects that cloned CSGO and Doom on neural nets? In the future this will be possible with real world data. With enough data you will essentially make a digital clone of the entire planet. Perfect for a future "Everything" simulator from Microsoft.
In 2009, I was given the details of my check flight before my private pilot licence exam flight. I was given the route the evening before. That night I decided to do the full plan of the flight, draw the lines on my map, calculate the distances and times, etc. Then I sat down, booted up FSX on my computer and decided to do the whole flight, properly. I flew it with the charts on my lap, checking the time on my watch. The geography matched what I expected from my charts precisely. It was so realistic that the next day when I did the check flight, the instructor remarked that it was the best check flight he'd had with a student in as long as he could remember.
This game is objectively the most gigantic and most ambitious game that humanity has ever created to date. You may like simulators or not, but what cannot be denied is that what they have done is pure science fiction brought to reality.
It is indeed, every day I have my moments of awe in the sim. The lightning, the athmosphere, weather, the super detailed ground and cities...it's almost poetic.
In the same way google earth is the most ambitiout website ever created? I think you are underestimating the impact of creativity on ambition and work. MSFS uses clever AI tools in combination with handcrafted assets, but from a programmer perspective this is just a big project. Nothing extrordinarily complex because you dont actually need to be able to interact with any of the invironment. Obviously if this was an interactible, fully dynamic world it would be by far the most ambitious project programmers habe ever worked on but like this it is really just clever technology packaged well (like a lot of games).
@@ecureuilamical Yeah but the difference is Star Citizen isn't quite bound by reality in the same way FS is. E.g. they don't need to ensure the fuel flow of their ships matches that of a real complex air breathing engine. I don't believe it has any weather modelling at all either does it?
Star Citizen is a lot more ambitious, most people don’t grasp the level of systems engineering that went into creating star citizen. They have engineered a lot of very difficult problems that haven’t been done in game engines before, creating systems than communicate with each other across big servers.
I'm one of the old folks who've been simming since Flight Simulator 2.0 in 1984 and I'm so happy to have been able to witness and experience the long progress of this franchise over 40 years. Like a kid on Christmas day, I still feel incredibly excited in anticipation of every new version launch and this is no exception. This video is the perfect preface for what we are about to witness, once again, this November 19th. Special thanks to Bruce Artwick (he's 71 years now), for creating this pivotal and influential piece of software and also special thanks to the hundreds of thousands of developers, modders, content creators and enthusiasts from all around the world, alive and gone, who have collaborated to this great experience we all cherish and love, called Flight Simulation
It is great being able to see these leaps in technology over the years! We're very lucky! I'm also keen to see what happens in the future with this as a platform the possibility of adding other forms of transportation like boats/ships etc... It can only get more granular from here 💪
It would be an amazing sim, if it actually ran like it's supposed to. 4 years from release, it is still broken in many ways, and now another entry before the last one is ironed out? Not ok. And word is, 2024 will release buggy, and broken as well. MSFS has turned into a cash grab. The graphics, and the concept are beautiful, yes....but I have many different planes in the sim that are unflyable do to broken flight models, planes that do fly, but systems come and go as they please...The one thing I can say is that I don't have the crash to desktop problem millions of others have, but millions of others have the same issues I have. Aviation is a beautiful, amazing thing and fans that want to simulate the experience........deserve way better. I have never been a fan of Microsoft, and this behavior is right in their wheelhouse. At least X Plane 12 works.
Duuuude, it's responsible for one of my coolest days. (I tried to make it short!) I'd been playing for quite a while at buddy's house. I think it was FS2002. Besides landing the shuttle first try...I had a lot of time in the 172 and trying to do things all proper and such. There was an ad in the newspaper one day for a $35 introductory flight at Central Flying Service, Little Rock. "Hey, I've got $35!" I thought I'd just go take a real ride. When I got there, lo and behold, I saw we'd be flying a 172. Well cool, I can compare. So I'm blabbing with the instructor about what I've been doing while we're getting ready, signing stuff and doing the walk around. Must have been good, I ended up flying it myself. Checklist , start up, taxi, line up, take off, cruise, couple loops around a mountain and back in to parking....all he did was talk on the radio and tell me where to go. "Are you sure you haven't done this before?" he kept saying. He wasn't having to correct anything except for once warning me about resting both hands on the yoke. After I got us up there without killing us and stuff, ("Are you sure you haven't done this before?" ) I settled in to cruising....(MSFS was spot on with the dash and controls man)..... I was just Ahhhhhh, looking around, big grin on my face and I stuck my right hand up there too like I might do in my car occasionally. "Uh uh....don't do that. That right hand always has to be ready for all the other tasks. If you get used to two hands you may find yourself "locked on" in an emergency when you need to be throttling and whatnot." Driving stick shifts all my life I'm pretty used to switching up but "Yes sir" Now, I have to admit upon landing I DID hand off controls at about 500' and let him touch down and get us slowed a bit before I took it back to park. He was all for letting me do it. We're cleared, I'm lined up and coming in, he's not saying anything, doesn't look nervous at all. 1500', I glanced at him sideways like "you sure?" "You're doing great! Are you SURE you haven't done this before?" Myself, as we get closer I'm thinking, I did NOT play with the brakes a lot while taxiing to get a feel. Everything else is cool. Suck to spin out or flip after all that. It's not like the instructor could un-brake if I hit them too hard. A little different than tapping a keyboard...and oddly...there's no replay button! Never had the means to pursue it further for a license but showed myself again............................................................ yeaaah...I can drive any damn thing. Just give me a minute.
Just 1984? Jeez I had the first release from 1979 😂 The 2020 release was impressive it delivered beyond what we imagined capable in those early 80s, I only played it for a few weeks though because I gave up after the MSFS10 release. I prefer driving trains now instead, old man and trains are better
It's kind of hard to explain how powerful flight sims can be as real life aviation training tools. Flight Sim 2020 was the trigger that made me get up and visit a flight school, now I own my PPL and I'm on IFR training. On every part of my training, FS2020 was there, helping me before every flight, every procedure, every departure, approach and landing.
My uncle is a pilot, he got me a joystick and a copy of FSX around 2010. Since then I spent years wanting to become a pilot, then pivoted to starting a degree in Aerospace engineering. Now I'm 26, have a degree, and I still play MSFS20 with the same joystick he got me all those years ago. MSFS24 pre-installed on my system, and hopefully in a few years once I have some money I'll finally go for a PPL. I can't put into words how much of an impact these simulators have had on my life. I still reminisce the days of FSX online and watching hot air balloons fly down runways at mach 3 while being intercepted by F-18s.
I can't tell you how underrated this is. If it's true that you aren't a regular in the aviation area, then heck, you have some deep knowledge. It is indescribable how beautiful the world is, and equally so, how well this video is made. Honestly, truly inspiring.
Thank you for your kind words I’ve been flying in sims on and off for the past decade, but I’m nowhere near the number of hours some have I just like to go and fly around every once in a while these days :)
@@MaxLenormand Very quick reply time! lol But jokes aside, from a student pilot who now has 13.5h and 80 flights, and has a passion for aviation since I was 6, I was amazed at how well you captured the vibe. Can't wait for this to hit 100k Views in 5 days time lol
This deserves to have way more views and likes than it does! From someone within the little community of companies in flight sim, thank you so much for representing our hobby so well! Bravo!
MS actually licensed/sold off the FS-X code base to Lockheed Martin who used it to make Prepar3D for it's own use for low-cost simulation for military use. Some of us have gotten our hands on it, but it was never really available to the general public via something like Steam. Lockheed actually has made a number of versions of it over time. They improved the code base to be more multithreaded, fixed a number of bugs, improved performance, etc.
I started with MSFS 95 “For Windows!”. Today I’m on 2020, with a fully-functional panel (a 1:1 match of the plane I fly IRL) , complete with GPS, Autopilot, Dual G5 displays, ignition switch, landing gear (with requisite green LED’s) throttle quadrant, etc… ALL MOUNTED TO a 6 axis motion platform, with a Buttkicker for vibrations, and I’m using a Quest 3 in VR (a monumental leap in itself) with the ability to cut a window in the virtual world so I can see my physical cockpit, iPad (running ForeFlight no less) knobs, throttle quadrant, flaps lever, trim and so on. Absolutely mind-bending.
The thing about MSFS is you will never get it until you sit down, plan that flight you’ve always wanted to take, and just do it. I was skeptical of this game for 3 years before finally getting into it last November actually, it’ll be a year and 3 weeks Ive played when FS2024 comes out. As a kid who’s always had a special place for aviation, I am so beyond grateful for every hand and mind that had a role in making this masterpiece. From the Developers to the countless Mod Devs that make it ever evolving. Thank you FS community. I am so glad I found you all. God bless and have a fantastic holidays.
That was one of the best narrations that I have ever heard. There were no stammers or profanity or other earmarks of a non-professional video. It was a pleasure to watch. You obviously put a lot of time and effort into the content. Well done.
My dad, dad's dad, and dad's dad's dad were all pilots. I'd eventually love to keep the streak going, but yikes it's expensive nowadays. I'll have to give flight simulator a spin in the interim with a newfound appreciation for the tech behind it.
It's a great idea to look into any scholarships you can get in universities, some of them include pilot training in your course that can be a stepping stone into a career. It's always worth a shot to try
@@MaxLenormandThe real difference after ASOBO was in the variety of objects, but 25 years ago all maps were populated. There was a lot of repetition in vegetation and buildings but they already used satellite data back then to design the game map. Rivers, woods, major highways and building clusters were all generic but were modeled at their real life location. I know because I found my house in rural Brazil back in 2002.
You need to talk with me, I am a user of FS since version 1.0 on the Apple IIe, was on the beta team for FSX and Ultimate Traffic, on the FS11 Design Advisory Board, wrote game design documents for Dovetail Games Flight Simulator Flight School and Flight Simulator World. I have information to fill a huge gap in your awesome video. Things that happened with the FSX code after ACES was shut down and before Asobo took over the (further developed by DTG) code.
Traditionally, map makers stopped other people copying their maps, by introducing subtle errors intentionally into their maps, in ways that almost nobody would notice, but which can be proven under scrutiny.... Maybe the Meigs Field airport is the Microsoft Flight Sim version of this?
It’s like developers that put Easter eggs within games that aren’t easy to achieve unless the developer does it often provides proof that they developed the software. Same thang! I didn’t know that really cool to hear.
the part about releasing during the global lockdowns really hit hard. I've often thought the same thing, how powerful that was to be able to explore the world when trapped in your home. bravo
Thank you, it does mean a lot that you liked it! And thank you so much for your help in making this happen, this project would have taken a *lot* longer without all your FS tips!
Thanks for a brilliant documentary. I just turned 60. I’m a pilot and am lucky enough to own a Mooney M20R but when people ask me about what I do for fun I always end up talking flight simulation. I was lucky enough to fly FS1 in my last year of school on a teachers apple II in 1981. After a short break for uni I picked it up again at MSF3 and haven’t missed a version since. I’ve enjoyed developing local scenery in the past but now I just put on the VR headset and am blown away.
During COVID-19, MSFS was one of my ways of escape since I can't travel. I would fly around the places I wanted to visit and try to catch all the POIs that I wanted to see when I travel. I would fly to volcanos I would even climb, and to cities that I would visit again after COVID restrictions were lifted. And then I also bought a HP Reverb VR headset and fly in MSFS. Unfortunately, I would get sick flying loops and had to stop because my body isn't used to having no G Force when I fly. ' Yes, I flew as a pilot trainee back in my military days. No, I didn't get my wings but those 7 hours in the sky was an experience I will never forget. And I get to relive some of it in MSFS. Thank you for the beautiful video.
Thank you for making this video. I've played every single Microsoft Simulator game since its beginning way back then it now seems. I am 57 years old and wasn't even a teenager when I first took my first flight on the computer. It was just simple lines and simple graphics back then but it was amazing because it almost felt like 3D to me because of the use of perspective and the sense of depth and height. Nobody would probably relate to it now unless you grew up in that time. It was amazing because I've only seen that kind of computer stuff at places like Disney World etc. Now, with the new simulator and everything else in the world presented almost in real life, It makes me smile to just remember how just a few lines making up a world in "3D" made me feel back then. Microsoft Simulator is merely an effort of hundreds of people throughout the years creating something magical for so many people and impacting their lives no matter how big or small.
Aside from a slight vocal sync issue when you're speaking to us directly, this is an epic, visually exhaustive, and stunning documentary and I just wanted to thank you very much. I'm another guy who grew up with MSFS from its earliest, 4 color CGA graphics incarnations. As I only use Android devices these days, this is quite an incentive to invest in a full size system again - guess I forgot just how much I enjoyed that sim since the early 80s.
Regarding no new releases since 2006: You did not mention 2012's Microsoft Flight. Written from scratch, it was a free-to-play sim. Hawaiis big island was free, the rest of Hawaii and Alaska were DLC's. You had to do missions to unlock planes and skins for planes, it had XP points, aerocache hunts, landing challenges. It was a great little sim to play with, although the arcadey experience and the limited world as well as pretty much everything being a paid DLC drove people off and it was soon discontinued.
I am an old time PC user. I had an original IBM PC, and an original Flight Simulator floppy disk from before it was owned by Microsoft. The floppy was bootable, it didn't use DOS. It talked directly to the PC hardware, and was the acid test for "IBM PC Compatibility" when the first clones came out. (Compaq was the first clone to boot Flight Simulator.) On the PC's of the time you had limited color graphics capabilities: 320 x 200 with 4 colors, or 640 x 200 with 2 colors (monochrome). In order to get the colors you see at 9:09, you had to use the Composite video output of the CGA card, connected to a TV or a monitor that supported composite video (IBM's did not). My first color monitor was from Zenith and it could switch from CGA to Composite. Notice the color shifting in the video, those are artifacts of pushing the composite video.
So I got my start on my first computer, a Commodore 64 with floppy drive. When my parents bought it for me for Christmas of 1984, they also got a copy of SubLogic Flight Simulator 2. I was 13 at the time and wanted to be a pilot when I grew up. I played the HELL out of that for years - taught myself how to navigate around using the VOR and NAV and ADF radios, learned how to take off and land, etc. It was wire frame, it was slow as molassas, especially since it had to pause all the time to load in new data off the C64's notoriously slow floppy drive, but it worked! Played a lot of other simulators over the years as I moved on to the Amiga and then PC... More than I can count really, but here's a few: F-15 Strike Eagle 1+2 (C64) F-18 (Amiga) Birds of Prey (Amiga) Falcon 3.0 + Mig 29 Falcon 4.0 Back to Bagdad Jane's F15 Then picked up FS 2004 - Century of Flight... Got back into Civilian flying, and eventually FSX. For a few years I was participating in the annual FS "Around the World Relay Race". But after MS cancelled Flight Sim development I got bored and went off and played other things, got into iRacing etc. Did dabble with FlightGear and X-Plane a bit at work for a couple projects that needed a flight simulator, and Prepar3D (since I work for Lockheed). I did pick up 2020 but didn't play it much. It was cool, but eh, I just lost interest in flying around sightseeing with no real purpose. It's like the difference between driving a sports car down the highway and driving it on a race track with others - Yeah you can do it, but it's nowhere near as interesting and exhilerating. That said, the new career mode and challenges and such have me excited for 2024 and I did preorder it. Looking forward to flying in VR, with my 3-axis motion rig and HOTAS setup, and having an actual REASON to fly beyond sightseeing.
Really great video / overview and a reminder of why we got into it and how lucky we are that Microsoft decided to jump back into this franchise in a serious and dedicated way. I can’t wait for next week. Thanks for adding to the hype train.
A bit of a correction. The 3D scans you're talking about at 31:30 are using data captured by aircraft, not satellites. That's why it's mostly done for urban areas. Satellites can't view from a low enough angle, and don't have the necessary resolution for detailed scans of buildings.
@@MaxLenormand sure, but the 3D scans of cities that Google and Bing (and by extension Flight simulator) use are absolutely derived from aircraft-captured data. (Source: I worked for one of the data providers that they use)
@@Peterincan absolutely you are right remember spy planes are better than satellites. As from low altitude there would definitely better death perception(used to make3d). but maybe microsoft combined both things.
@MaxLenormand Well, in the Noclip documentary, which you have obviously seen with how much you lifted from it, they explicitly say it was aircraft data.
Wow! You have some real story-telling talent. I was especially impressed by the part telling about the Covid period. I have been an airline pilot for 28 years but was struck by the beauty of MSFS in the months that I sat at home and though my company was about to expire. People always say: ‘Why do go fly a computer, when you just got home from flying a 787?!’ Well … like you said and showed … I can strap on a Spitfire an go fly over places I admired from high up and watch them from way down low. You can forget about everything and just see the world.
Dude, I appreciate you guys. I’ve only flown like 10 times. But I commend you for the absolute sacrifice of time for others. It is. It may seem like work yeah, but truly are connecting the world. But the time and patience you possess is worth the words to the least. How do you step away so easily? I’m a professional Tattooer, and my advantage is if I ever move anywhere I will be fine. I will be able to tattoo anyone in the area wherever I go. It’s easy. But I can’t imagine having to fly somewhere every day and the whole crashing thing, does it wear off? Is it a major concern moreso than a car accident? Or is it so save that it’s just another day? Obviously there are worry’s yeah, but I’ve always been interested in pilots views in general? Sorry to bother ya. Appreciate you!
@@Tattootin Hi. Well … where to start? ; There are a number of ways to look at it. Is it safe? Yes it is. Of course aircraft parts can stop working or get damaged. However unlike in a car, there is a lot of redundancy. So no single or mostly a even double failure will prevent the aircraft from landing safely. Secondly, we have very realistic (real) flight simulators in which we train a lot of bad situations and … every time we manage to come home safely. That builds not only skill and knowledge, but also confidence. Car accidents are usually mistakes made by to motorists. Aircraft operation is of course also guided by a third party called Air Traffic Control and a system that detects and warns for possible collisions. Etc. So aircraft accidents, yeah … we always say: ‘Never say it won’t happen to you’ … because that is the big danger … Complacency! But mostly we look at certain incidents and accidents and go ‘How the hell is that possible?!’ But flying yourself vs being a passenger is like riding a bike; I’d rather steer the bike, than sit on the back.
Having this "see the world" game come out during 2020 was a surprisingly emotional experience, even just revisiting those trailers today brings up some of those feelings again.
Great job on this - from a fellow aviator/engineer (who was applying at Aces Studio in 2008/2009 btw). MSFS inspired me to get my pilot's license and launched my career into aerospace. I feel like there was a special flavor of disillusionment for the aviation/sim community - those who poured their passion into the sim - when Aces closed. Pretty apparent by how long we hung onto and supported an aging FSX title. So when the FS2020 tailer was (surprise) released at E3, I'm not sure if what I felt was catharsis, redemption, shock or just profound happiness, but this 34 year old dude wept absolute tears of joy (and maybe a few more times with the subsequent trailers). Not ashamed to admit it.
Haven't watched the entire video yet, but after the 10 first minutes, I had to thank you for reminding me how lucky I am to work in the incredible field of software editing. Sometimes we forget how outstanding the progress made has been in the last decades, and it truly reminded it to me.
An excellent walk down memory lane. I have seen many of the iterations of flight sim mentioned in this video. It’s amazing how much flight sim has improved since the early days. I think if there is an expiration date on maintaining the servers feeding our flight sim hunger Microsoft and others would be shooting themselves in the foot. They would be killing the very reason people have been upgrading their hardware and the peripherals necessary for the immersion into the world they created. Great work on this video. It’s in the same class as a documentary film. 👍🏼
Max, this video was absolutely amazing. Storytelling, video graphics, and detail, all excellent. Looking forward to watching this channel grow. (this is the first time I've been motivated to pay a YT creator)
Great video, Max! I remember the first Novalogic Flight Sim, and have really enjoyed watching how FS has grown and improved over the years. This was a fun video to watch and remember the history of FS. Well done sir, well done!
It’s true! You can find just about any house, school, or workplace in MSFS. My tip is to fly out of a general aviation field near that community, take off in a Cessna 152 or other airplane that’s good at slow speeds and low altitudes, and start looking!😊 PS: you could probably even use a gossamer condor if that’s available, you might even be able to land there!
Didn’t even realize how long this video was until about 6 minutes in. I’m glad I stayed! This production quality is amazing. I am an aviation enthusiast and play a mobile flight sim called Infinite Flight. They don’t have 3d buildings around cities, but only around 1,000 or so airports spread across the globe. For a mobile flight sim it is pretty amazing. Matter of fact I was doing a virtual flight from Lisbon Portugal, to the Azores while watching this amazing video! Keep doing what you’re doing!
Great video, just wanted to say that yes, Ratatouille is a GREAT game. It is SO much fun. I played the crap out of it on the PS2 way back when, and even recently just about a year ago a pang of nostalgia got me to replay it, and it was just as good as I remembered it as a kid.
What a great video, I had no idea how all this came about, yet I was grateful it did. I become an Aircraft engineer because I love Aircraft. I became a simulated pilot in 2020 to "get out of the house" and pass the time in lockdown. I found my house, places I had worked and visited and more beautiful places I've never visited, and most likely never will visit. Every update makes it better looking and more accurate representation of the real world. Many, many thanks to these people for making it happen and to you, for lifting the curtain for a glimpse behind the scenes.
@@MaxLenormand This video was amazing. I haven't seen any of your other work yet, but I've been playing Flight Sim since the early 80's, and I didn't cringe once. You did the series justice, thank you!
Hey Max, never seen any of your videos done but this is really well thought out and put together. thanks for the entire video. As a pilot myself and a Flight Engineer for my job, i appreciate the breakdown on the technical side of the world through the yes of the development teams that made the sims i grew up loving.
I wouldn't say it was "accidental." Jorg Neumann the project manager for MSFS stated from the start, the goal was to create a digital twin of the earth. Now with better data, and machine learning in MSFS2024, they are calling it "digital twin 2.0."
Small correction: Most imagery in Google Maps/Bing Maps for photogrammetry is acquired by aircraft, not satellite data. Even most of the 2D imagery is captured by airphoto companies, not satellite companies. Yes, satellite imagery is used heavily, but areas with any amount of detail are generally captured by aircraft.
Well done young man!! I really appreciate the effort and care that clearly went into the making of this documentary. I'm an old computer programmer and licensed pilot. I've played Microsoft Flight Simulator since it was first released for the PC in the 1980's. I really enjoyed the trip down memory lane. From a tech and engineering perspective, I really enjoyed the look behind the scenes and the story of the evolution of Flight Simulator. Thanks again!!
I have no qualms in saying that this presentation on flight simulation is the most outstanding work I have seen on the subject. Thank you for making it.
Awesome video dude, when I was a kid, 5.1 and FSX were some of the most pivotal moments of my gaming history. Building a new PC or just installing the newest FS to see the upgraded graphics brings so much nostalgia man. Thanks for making this.
they didn't map anything, OpenStreetMap contributors did. also OpenStreetMap is not opensource (that applies to software), OpenStreetMap is open data. Being open is what made it available to third party to use them for free and only comply with OpenStreetMap license and attribute the data to us, the OpenStreetMap Contributors.
You're right, that's a simple nuance I didn't catch correctly. I wanted to use a term more people might be familiar with, but that's not exactly right, good point I do think Microsoft deserves some credit though, they've done a lot of work tying everything together
MSFS 2004 is what sparked my love for aviation as a kid. I remember flying the Learjet around everywhere and just being amazed by how good the game looked at the time and how real it felt. Such nostalgia
Very well done! I think anyone with any interest in flight simulation should watch and enjoy seeing the progress Microsoft has made over the years at recreating the world. I remember vividly when we were all quarantined in our homes because of the Covid pandemic, separated from friends and loved ones, Microsoft gave us the ability to virtually experience the world in striking detail. It went a very long way towards reducing the depression and anxiety many of us were experiencing by not being able to travel. I think Asobo, Blackshark and Microsoft helped us maintain our sanity. I really appreciate the work you put into creating this video which perfectly documents the magic Microsoft gave us. Thanks!
this video is of a quality i would expect from a channel with over 100,000 subscribers, keep up the good work and im sure you will reach that in no time.
Bro!! You are a freaking story telling savant. I got sucked into this like I was listening to the “someone knows something” podcast! It was so much more than that though, the video editing that you put with it and the scene toward the end with the epic music was just magical. I felt transported. I haven’t played a flight sim since those early 90’s versions but I so enjoyed the story. First time listener here. You picked up a sub.
This is truly an amazing video. Really well done. When I was at MSFT building the PC I dreamed of pitching them to use latest images to get most updated imagery... but I do realized it wasn't that straight shot as just offering latest Landsat and serving them.
Appreciate the kind words Bruno, thank you! As the Melbourne building shows, there are *some* updates, though I didn't find a good answer on how often they do update the basemaps Landsat (and Copernicus, and alike) are great for coverage, but won't be high enough resolution for populated areas though. If you know if they've ever considered using it in Flight Sim I'd be so curious to know!
@@MaxLenormand I used to live in the same suburb as that (not) tall building in Melbourne. Even though I got a bit of a buzz knowing the entire world flight-sim community was focused on my home suburb of Carlton for a few weeks, I was extremely relieved when they fixed it. It was very frustrating flying around my home suburb with this ridiculous tall building that wasn't supposed to be there. It really destroyed the immersion for me.
For near 20 yrs I've thought that Meteorologist could use MSFS as a weather display system. One could plot buoyancy as a low layer of green fog. Show low-level shear in a red hued fog. Chromatically had and anywhere you see a bright purple conditions ripe for a tornado. Maybe wind streamlines or fire indices. Then just jump in the Cessna and check the weather out? Data Augmented Weather Display
To be honest I was not going to click on this video as I rarely watch videos longer than 10 minutes. Boy I’m so glad I clicked on your video. It is extremely well written and produced with an excellent voice to tell us the story. I have been using flight sim since the Apple days and continue to use it today. Saying that I really did not know the background story and now I do! I am now your latest subscriber. Can’t wait to see all your other videos.
There are so many channels on TH-cam with long format informative videos, you should really start giving them more chances and you'll be surprised. Enjoy your new long format videos journey 😃
Nice video and as Bob Hope used to say: "thanks for the memories." I didn't own an Apple II (wanted to, but Dad didn't buy one - he worked for IBM). We did get one of the first IBM PCs and for Christmas I got MSFS 1.0. I can't even begin to count the hours I spent on that sim. As crude as it was, it was captivating to me as a nerdy teenager. In my late 50's, I'm still pretty much as excited every time I fire up MSFS as I was in 1982.
Great video, I was really moved by it. The production quality is insane and it was very inspiring seeing the ambitions, tech and background of the franchise. Can I ask, what is the song at 19:10 , it reminds me of Legend of Zelda. Very holy and serene sounding
@MaxLenormand Thank you for this brilliant essay. You just told the story of my computing and PC gaming life. Every version of the flight simulator you shared, I played, dreamed with, and learned with. I would say this is one of the best thought out, researched and presented pieces I have ever seen, and you deserve global recognition for this. Just wow, Max. Bravo.
Brilliant. My first sim was SubLogic FS on a PC XT clone back in 1985. I’ve flown every version since, except FS2000 which was a shocker. Thank you for bringing back so many memories. Great video.
40:25 It's funny because this used to be one of the weakest points of the simulator. But with msfs2024 this will become one of its greatest strengths. Not only does everything from the ground now look incredibly detailed, but you can now step out of your plane and explore that same world on foot as if it were an first person open-world game 40:33 In msfs2024 the simulator will only take up 28gb since most of everything will be from the cloud. Not only will the earth will be a thousand times better than that of msfs2020 but it will also take up a thousand times less space. It's fucking black magic what these guys do. They're in a league of their own.
Great video, really enjoyed revisiting the history. I've played every version of Microsoft Flight Sim as I was lucky to have a father who was in IT and had computers in the house from 1979 onwards. Somewhere in a box I still have my 1982 manual. Today, with VR and good controllers I get to lose myself from the stresses of life in a way thats pretty close to my experience flying light aircraft. Sims and real flying are great escapism and I can't wait for MSFS 2024 to be released to let me mind relax and enable us to explore the world in more detail than ever before.
In the early days, Bruce Artwick was still back-porting enhancements he'd written for Microsoft to other computer platforms and selling it as "Flight Simulator II". I started playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0 on my dad's Compaq, but the version I probably played the most back in the day was Flight Simulator II for the Atari ST, which came out between MSFS 2.0 and 3.0, and had a lot of the features that ended up in 3.0. Microsoft actually released a licensed version of MSFS for the original Macintosh, and I think a lot of the work Artwick put in the Atari ST/Amiga version came from that. There were no textures, not even a real lighting model--everything was flat solid-colored polygons, and it was only showing a few frames a second. But somehow, it all invited this open-ended exploration of its little virtual world. FSII for ST's crown jewel was a map of the San Francisco Bay Area, which was more detailed than the others they'd had up to that point, and the default airport had moved from Chicago Meigs to Oakland International to show it off. I spent so much time just flying around San Francisco, and it made me weirdly familiar with the local geography before I actually visited the place. These days, I use a Mac and it can't run modern MSFS, so I play with X-Plane, which now looks graphically primitive by comparison (though it'd have been mind-boggling 20 years ago; it looks sort of like what MS Flight Simulator X would if development had never stopped) and doesn't have streaming maps, but the planes are really realistic. Some of the kind of simulation hobbyists who build cockpits in their houses still swear by it. Unfortunately I don't see X-Plane surviving competition with MSFS over the long haul, but on the Mac it's the best we have. But since X-Plane isn't dependent on servers (at least for *that*), it might have a longer afterlife than one that is.
I started with MSFS 98 as a kid. I'm now an airline pilot and I STILL fly microsoft flight sim in my spare time. Love seeing all the focus on it these days.
Amazing video, best history of MSFS I've seen! Also amazing how MS and Asobo made this epic 2020 version and the dropped the ball so hard on 2024, with bugs and issues (beyond the initial server meltdown) galore. Really hope they can fix it over the next year!!
im sorry but ram was really not the limiting factor. sure you need ram but even a few polys on screen where extremely taxing on the cpu. even if you had infinite amounts of ram, the CPUs of the time just couldn't handle more then a few dozen unfilled polys at 3 to 4 fps.
Great video, thank you. Every time any video taking about MSFS2020, I can't stop my emotion being moved of having a chance having a glance of my home city, during one of the hardest time in human history, when some countries still got lock down and we were still wearing mask everyday in the city that I was living. Being realist is one thing. Having a chance "realistically" visiting the world and home city, during the hardest time, is another "thing". There were many games with realistic game world or fantastic design or fun gameplay in the decade, but when mentioning the greatest game in the decade, my vote will still be on the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
26:19 You missed a big failure Microsoft made after FSX: Microsoft tried releasing a replacement to the Flight Simulator series - "Microsoft Flight". 🤢 Rumor has it that Microsoft wanted to prove they could do just as good a job as the folks at ACE did, but the end product was dog feces. 💩
I recently splurged on a gaming computer and MS flight sim, along with VR goggles for immersion. The idea was to fly again after having given it up in real life a couple decades ago. I was shocked when I realized it's really an open world game where the game world is the WHOLE earth in one to one scale and really pretty good fidelity. While I enjoy the airplanes, I think the best thing is picking a place and just having a look at it. Tierra Del Fuego. The Faroe Islands. Anywhere. It's weird, because I don't think most users of the sim even think about it being in the same category as Genshin or Legend of Zelda, but not only is it, but it absolutely smashes the games in that category.
I played the flight sim on the old Plato IV systems at Iowa State (1974-75), systems were hosted at University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana, coincidentally, the University that Bruce Artwick attended.
A great history, I've been playing with Flight Sim since the mid 90s. It's a sign of how far they've come when flew over a friend's cottage in a remote bay on a Scottish offshore island to see it rendered almost perfectly. That one normal window was shown as a bay window seems rather trivial in world context!
I think “accidentally” meant that every other map we see online is not as good as it should be. Because every other detail that needs to be represented is on a competitor or an opensource platform. What microsoft did was use all of these and the collection they created made the best map that we can find, so much so that microsofts maps in game was used by other companies as a resource. “Accidentally” meant that they did not intend to be a resource for any other purpose, they just wanted to make their game as stunning as possible.
I grew up in New York near JFK airport. I use to ride my bike up to the airport and lay it down in the grass right near the perimeter fence. I would watch the British Airways and Air France Concords take off and land as well as many 747's and other big jets. I went to the library where they had a copy of flight simulator running on a Trs80 computer. I fell in love with aviation and went on to graduate from Aviation High-school in New York, where I learned how an aircraft functions. I have been with American Airlines in Technical Operations for 39 years. Thank God for Flight Simulator ✈️
I worked for one for the first PC shops in the UK in 1981 and was at IBM in Basingstoke the day IBM announced the PC was on sale in the UK. A few months later we were sent a pre-release version of Flight Simulator on a 360K floppy disk (might have been 2). I remember myself and 2 other techies trying to get it to work. We couldn't work out how to run it. It had moving graphics, not just text. At about midnight, we phoned IBM tech support (not Microsoft) in Basingstoke and I remember all the office staff had gone home but the security staff on the front desk talked us through setting up the colour graphics card (CGA) and a 5153 Color monitor. It is simply mind blowing to see how it has developed. To have played any part in its development is a badge of honour.
I learned a little computer basic in high school in the late 70's. If you were an exceptional student (nerd🙂) you were allowed to use the punched tape machine for your programs, the rest of us had to make our programs by filling in the little boxes with a number 2 pencil on a stack of punch cards. My sister came home from college with a Vic-20 and I got more familiar with computers. In 1982 my best friend and neighbor came home from college with his computer and a bootlegged copy of Flight Simulator. He and his dad had been trying to fly on it for days and were getting frustrated. He came over to get me to see if I could help them, I had been in flight school for a few months. They had been able to take off and fly a little but could never land. I got the Cessna in the air and showed them the settings for a landing and I greased it. Man, that was a long time ago..... GREAT video sir! Well done!
Amazing video! I am not one to usually comment on videos, but I‘d like to, on this one. Growing up, it‘s always been a dream for me to fly. I didn‘t get to take a flight until my late teenage years, for a family vacation to Florida, for which we had to save for a long time (I‘m from Germany). Today, I spend a substantial amount of my spare time flying whatever routes come to my mind in FS2020. This video helped me understand how all of it works on a rational level, but more importantly (to me), it got me on an emotional level, resonating with my childhood dream and how technology made it possible for me to have these amazing feelings at home at my desk by just „playing the game“. Also, the profuction quality of this video is outstanding! Thank you for all your effort! ❤
Oh wow. That was great! I never played any Flight Simulator. I'm not even that interested in flying as in real life it's a bit stressful experience for me, but this video was so damn good! Thanks!
![แฉกลโกงงานวัด 2024 [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.106 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/taC5dpP3HXA/mqdefault.jpg)
The Behind the Scenes of how this documentary was made is on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/bts-making-video-116374848
It's also the best way to support the channel!
Just posted it on various FB MSFS pages👍🏻 it's well received.
@ Thank you for sharing it, I really appreciate it!
I usually have a lot of criticisms of a video featuring the technology I specialized in during my career, especially when the video is made by someone much younger. Frankly, this is one of the best videos covering this history and development of software I have ever seen. While I could quibble with some of the comments about Apple and that era in general, I won't. Well done. I am glad I stumbled upon your channel today and look forward to seeing your other and future videos!
Check out Niantic's (Pokemon Go) latest paper on making a Large Geospatial Model. Something like that could be used for the next version of MSFS.
Also, have you seen the AI projects that cloned CSGO and Doom on neural nets? In the future this will be possible with real world data. With enough data you will essentially make a digital clone of the entire planet. Perfect for a future "Everything" simulator from Microsoft.
Great video.
You didn't mention that it works very well in VR. 🤔
In 2009, I was given the details of my check flight before my private pilot licence exam flight. I was given the route the evening before. That night I decided to do the full plan of the flight, draw the lines on my map, calculate the distances and times, etc.
Then I sat down, booted up FSX on my computer and decided to do the whole flight, properly. I flew it with the charts on my lap, checking the time on my watch. The geography matched what I expected from my charts precisely.
It was so realistic that the next day when I did the check flight, the instructor remarked that it was the best check flight he'd had with a student in as long as he could remember.
Msfs has always been extraordinary and welll ahead of it's time
@@justinnotarianni2427yeah that like the whole point of the video
Now they need to make "Microsoft-world Sim" Flying, trucking, boating, farming, racing, driving, diving, fishing.
2050 ready 👍🏻
2079 even space
3006 the galaxies
SimCopter meets LegoCity!
The world is already 2 Petabytes
You forgot trains. Train simming is huge and has dedicated geeks spending as much or more money on it than flight sims.
@@WestCoastWheelman So right AND TRAINS!!! lol how I not add trains!!!
This game is objectively the most gigantic and most ambitious game that humanity has ever created to date. You may like simulators or not, but what cannot be denied is that what they have done is pure science fiction brought to reality.
It is indeed, every day I have my moments of awe in the sim. The lightning, the athmosphere, weather, the super detailed ground and cities...it's almost poetic.
In the same way google earth is the most ambitiout website ever created? I think you are underestimating the impact of creativity on ambition and work. MSFS uses clever AI tools in combination with handcrafted assets, but from a programmer perspective this is just a big project. Nothing extrordinarily complex because you dont actually need to be able to interact with any of the invironment. Obviously if this was an interactible, fully dynamic world it would be by far the most ambitious project programmers habe ever worked on but like this it is really just clever technology packaged well (like a lot of games).
Star Citizen is quite a challenging game to create as well. Not the same scale and objective but both as ambitious from my pov
@@ecureuilamical Yeah but the difference is Star Citizen isn't quite bound by reality in the same way FS is. E.g. they don't need to ensure the fuel flow of their ships matches that of a real complex air breathing engine. I don't believe it has any weather modelling at all either does it?
Star Citizen is a lot more ambitious, most people don’t grasp the level of systems engineering that went into creating star citizen. They have engineered a lot of very difficult problems that haven’t been done in game engines before, creating systems than communicate with each other across big servers.
I'm one of the old folks who've been simming since Flight Simulator 2.0 in 1984 and I'm so happy to have been able to witness and experience the long progress of this franchise over 40 years. Like a kid on Christmas day, I still feel incredibly excited in anticipation of every new version launch and this is no exception. This video is the perfect preface for what we are about to witness, once again, this November 19th.
Special thanks to Bruce Artwick (he's 71 years now), for creating this pivotal and influential piece of software and also special thanks to the hundreds of thousands of developers, modders, content creators and enthusiasts from all around the world, alive and gone, who have collaborated to this great experience we all cherish and love, called Flight Simulation
It is great being able to see these leaps in technology over the years! We're very lucky! I'm also keen to see what happens in the future with this as a platform the possibility of adding other forms of transportation like boats/ships etc... It can only get more granular from here 💪
well said, I started with the 5.1 version
It would be an amazing sim, if it actually ran like it's supposed to. 4 years from release, it is still broken in many ways, and now another entry before the last one is ironed out? Not ok. And word is, 2024 will release buggy, and broken as well. MSFS has turned into a cash grab. The graphics, and the concept are beautiful, yes....but I have many different planes in the sim that are unflyable do to broken flight models, planes that do fly, but systems come and go as they please...The one thing I can say is that I don't have the crash to desktop problem millions of others have, but millions of others have the same issues I have.
Aviation is a beautiful, amazing thing and fans that want to simulate the experience........deserve way better. I have never been a fan of Microsoft, and this behavior is right in their wheelhouse.
At least X Plane 12 works.
Duuuude, it's responsible for one of my coolest days. (I tried to make it short!)
I'd been playing for quite a while at buddy's house. I think it was FS2002. Besides landing the shuttle first try...I had a lot of time in the 172 and trying to do things all proper and such.
There was an ad in the newspaper one day for a $35 introductory flight at Central Flying Service, Little Rock. "Hey, I've got $35!" I thought I'd just go take a real ride.
When I got there, lo and behold, I saw we'd be flying a 172. Well cool, I can compare.
So I'm blabbing with the instructor about what I've been doing while we're getting ready, signing stuff and doing the walk around. Must have been good, I ended up flying it myself. Checklist , start up, taxi, line up, take off, cruise, couple loops around a mountain and back in to parking....all he did was talk on the radio and tell me where to go. "Are you sure you haven't done this before?" he kept saying. He wasn't having to correct anything except for once warning me about resting both hands on the yoke.
After I got us up there without killing us and stuff, ("Are you sure you haven't done this before?" ) I settled in to cruising....(MSFS was spot on with the dash and controls man)..... I was just Ahhhhhh, looking around, big grin on my face and I stuck my right hand up there too like I might do in my car occasionally.
"Uh uh....don't do that. That right hand always has to be ready for all the other tasks. If you get used to two hands you may find yourself "locked on" in an emergency when you need to be throttling and whatnot."
Driving stick shifts all my life I'm pretty used to switching up but "Yes sir"
Now, I have to admit upon landing I DID hand off controls at about 500' and let him touch down and get us slowed a bit before I took it back to park. He was all for letting me do it. We're cleared, I'm lined up and coming in, he's not saying anything, doesn't look nervous at all. 1500', I glanced at him sideways like "you sure?" "You're doing great! Are you SURE you haven't done this before?"
Myself, as we get closer I'm thinking, I did NOT play with the brakes a lot while taxiing to get a feel. Everything else is cool. Suck to spin out or flip after all that. It's not like the instructor could un-brake if I hit them too hard. A little different than tapping a keyboard...and oddly...there's no replay button!
Never had the means to pursue it further for a license but showed myself again............................................................ yeaaah...I can drive any damn thing. Just give me a minute.
Just 1984? Jeez I had the first release from 1979 😂
The 2020 release was impressive it delivered beyond what we imagined capable in those early 80s, I only played it for a few weeks though because I gave up after the MSFS10 release. I prefer driving trains now instead, old man and trains are better
It's kind of hard to explain how powerful flight sims can be as real life aviation training tools.
Flight Sim 2020 was the trigger that made me get up and visit a flight school, now I own my PPL and I'm on IFR training. On every part of my training, FS2020 was there, helping me before every flight, every procedure, every departure, approach and landing.
Congrats on the PPL & IFR! Eventually, one day I’d like to pick it back up again and get a license, if nothing else than for younger, teenage me
Same! Good luck with the Instrument rating.
My uncle is a pilot, he got me a joystick and a copy of FSX around 2010. Since then I spent years wanting to become a pilot, then pivoted to starting a degree in Aerospace engineering. Now I'm 26, have a degree, and I still play MSFS20 with the same joystick he got me all those years ago. MSFS24 pre-installed on my system, and hopefully in a few years once I have some money I'll finally go for a PPL.
I can't put into words how much of an impact these simulators have had on my life. I still reminisce the days of FSX online and watching hot air balloons fly down runways at mach 3 while being intercepted by F-18s.
I'm not a pilot but thanks to flight sims I'm pretty sure I could land a plane if necessary.
I can't tell you how underrated this is. If it's true that you aren't a regular in the aviation area, then heck, you have some deep knowledge. It is indescribable how beautiful the world is, and equally so, how well this video is made. Honestly, truly inspiring.
Thank you for your kind words
I’ve been flying in sims on and off for the past decade, but I’m nowhere near the number of hours some have
I just like to go and fly around every once in a while these days :)
@@MaxLenormand Very quick reply time! lol
But jokes aside, from a student pilot who now has 13.5h and 80 flights, and has a passion for aviation since I was 6, I was amazed at how well you captured the vibe. Can't wait for this to hit 100k Views in 5 days time lol
this was absolutely epic. well done
@@MaxLenormandbrilliant work
@@pilothyperalmost at 250K after 9 days, you called it lol
Microsoft really went on a sidequest with Flight Simulator 😅
Keep in mind that they also made Sea of Thieves, arguably the best sailing simulator
This deserves to have way more views and likes than it does! From someone within the little community of companies in flight sim, thank you so much for representing our hobby so well! Bravo!
Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you liked it!
@@LizardDoggo I can recognize a man of taste by his username
@@corentinmouchel3825 😎
True.
couldn't agree more
MS actually licensed/sold off the FS-X code base to Lockheed Martin who used it to make Prepar3D for it's own use for low-cost simulation for military use. Some of us have gotten our hands on it, but it was never really available to the general public via something like Steam. Lockheed actually has made a number of versions of it over time. They improved the code base to be more multithreaded, fixed a number of bugs, improved performance, etc.
It's a little funny, maybe ironic, that this kind of "tool", has this great trailer/Ad for this kind of tool. th-cam.com/video/qvSUszOE-fM/w-d-xo.html
"Student" licenses 🤣
I started with MSFS 95 “For Windows!”.
Today I’m on 2020, with a fully-functional panel (a 1:1 match of the plane I fly IRL) , complete with GPS, Autopilot, Dual G5 displays, ignition switch, landing gear (with requisite green LED’s) throttle quadrant, etc… ALL MOUNTED TO a 6 axis motion platform, with a Buttkicker for vibrations, and I’m using a Quest 3 in VR (a monumental leap in itself) with the ability to cut a window in the virtual world so I can see my physical cockpit, iPad (running ForeFlight no less) knobs, throttle quadrant, flaps lever, trim and so on.
Absolutely mind-bending.
Man I would love to try something like that
Please make a video of your setup
Start making short form content, it would really take off (no pun intended lol)
Gay
The thing about MSFS is you will never get it until you sit down, plan that flight you’ve always wanted to take, and just do it. I was skeptical of this game for 3 years before finally getting into it last November actually, it’ll be a year and 3 weeks Ive played when FS2024 comes out. As a kid who’s always had a special place for aviation, I am so beyond grateful for every hand and mind that had a role in making this masterpiece. From the Developers to the countless Mod Devs that make it ever evolving. Thank you FS community. I am so glad I found you all. God bless and have a fantastic holidays.
I saw it on game pass the other day and I might just give it a try
That was one of the best narrations that I have ever heard. There were no stammers or profanity or other earmarks of a non-professional video. It was a pleasure to watch. You obviously put a lot of time and effort into the content. Well done.
100% Very well done.👍
Extremely well done! Great job. ❤
Oh Jesus fucking Christ, not profanity! The horror!
Go suck a fuck.
Agree, and for a dude who is just coming up on TH-cam, this is absolutely stunning work. I hope he can keep it up!
Incredible skill of speech, have to say
My dad, dad's dad, and dad's dad's dad were all pilots. I'd eventually love to keep the streak going, but yikes it's expensive nowadays. I'll have to give flight simulator a spin in the interim with a newfound appreciation for the tech behind it.
You you get scholarships and student loans. At least here in AUS
It's a great idea to look into any scholarships you can get in universities, some of them include pilot training in your course that can be a stepping stone into a career. It's always worth a shot to try
To clarify, flight simulator has had the whole world, albeit not as detailed, since FS5 as far as I can tell.
That’s true! I did hint at it when talking about other maps, though they were mostly empty lands without much interest
@@MaxLenormandThe real difference after ASOBO was in the variety of objects, but 25 years ago all maps were populated. There was a lot of repetition in vegetation and buildings but they already used satellite data back then to design the game map. Rivers, woods, major highways and building clusters were all generic but were modeled at their real life location. I know because I found my house in rural Brazil back in 2002.
43:11 I’m not a pilot, but when my wife and I drive past a random airfield, I will, many times, say “I’ve landed there.”
You need to talk with me, I am a user of FS since version 1.0 on the Apple IIe, was on the beta team for FSX and Ultimate Traffic, on the FS11 Design Advisory Board, wrote game design documents for Dovetail Games Flight Simulator Flight School and Flight Simulator World. I have information to fill a huge gap in your awesome video. Things that happened with the FSX code after ACES was shut down and before Asobo took over the (further developed by DTG) code.
Traditionally, map makers stopped other people copying their maps, by introducing subtle errors intentionally into their maps, in ways that almost nobody would notice, but which can be proven under scrutiny.... Maybe the Meigs Field airport is the Microsoft Flight Sim version of this?
This is not a papertown because it's very noticable (being the starting location of previous entries of the series). It's really fan service.
It’s like developers that put Easter eggs within games that aren’t easy to achieve unless the developer does it often provides proof that they developed the software. Same thang! I didn’t know that really cool to hear.
the part about releasing during the global lockdowns really hit hard. I've often thought the same thing, how powerful that was to be able to explore the world when trapped in your home. bravo
Virtual tourism.
Exactly what thought.
brought to you by... Bill Gates
Next step: Get street view data into it.
Magnificient work my friend, the music towards the last chapter gave me chills..
Thank you, it does mean a lot that you liked it!
And thank you so much for your help in making this happen, this project would have taken a *lot* longer without all your FS tips!
Thanks for a brilliant documentary. I just turned 60. I’m a pilot and am lucky enough to own a Mooney M20R but when people ask me about what I do for fun I always end up talking flight simulation. I was lucky enough to fly FS1 in my last year of school on a teachers apple II in 1981. After a short break for uni I picked it up again at MSF3 and haven’t missed a version since. I’ve enjoyed developing local scenery in the past but now I just put on the VR headset and am blown away.
During COVID-19, MSFS was one of my ways of escape since I can't travel. I would fly around the places I wanted to visit and try to catch all the POIs that I wanted to see when I travel. I would fly to volcanos I would even climb, and to cities that I would visit again after COVID restrictions were lifted.
And then I also bought a HP Reverb VR headset and fly in MSFS. Unfortunately, I would get sick flying loops and had to stop because my body isn't used to having no G Force when I fly. '
Yes, I flew as a pilot trainee back in my military days. No, I didn't get my wings but those 7 hours in the sky was an experience I will never forget. And I get to relive some of it in MSFS. Thank you for the beautiful video.
This is clearly one of the best narrated videos I've watched in a long time! Well done!
This was fantastic. Deserves to be front page before the release!
Thank you! Ha, I don't control that, I just hope it ends up in front of people who might find this interesting!
Thank you for making this video. I've played every single Microsoft Simulator game since its beginning way back then it now seems. I am 57 years old and wasn't even a teenager when I first took my first flight on the computer. It was just simple lines and simple graphics back then but it was amazing because it almost felt like 3D to me because of the use of perspective and the sense of depth and height. Nobody would probably relate to it now unless you grew up in that time. It was amazing because I've only seen that kind of computer stuff at places like Disney World etc. Now, with the new simulator and everything else in the world presented almost in real life, It makes me smile to just remember how just a few lines making up a world in "3D" made me feel back then. Microsoft Simulator is merely an effort of hundreds of people throughout the years creating something magical for so many people and impacting their lives no matter how big or small.
Aside from a slight vocal sync issue when you're speaking to us directly, this is an epic, visually exhaustive, and stunning documentary and I just wanted to thank you very much. I'm another guy who grew up with MSFS from its earliest, 4 color CGA graphics incarnations. As I only use Android devices these days, this is quite an incentive to invest in a full size system again - guess I forgot just how much I enjoyed that sim since the early 80s.
Every Flightsimmer should watch this about background, history and challenges of Flight Simulator
Regarding no new releases since 2006: You did not mention 2012's Microsoft Flight. Written from scratch, it was a free-to-play sim. Hawaiis big island was free, the rest of Hawaii and Alaska were DLC's. You had to do missions to unlock planes and skins for planes, it had XP points, aerocache hunts, landing challenges. It was a great little sim to play with, although the arcadey experience and the limited world as well as pretty much everything being a paid DLC drove people off and it was soon discontinued.
I am an old time PC user. I had an original IBM PC, and an original Flight Simulator floppy disk from before it was owned by Microsoft. The floppy was bootable, it didn't use DOS. It talked directly to the PC hardware, and was the acid test for "IBM PC Compatibility" when the first clones came out. (Compaq was the first clone to boot Flight Simulator.) On the PC's of the time you had limited color graphics capabilities: 320 x 200 with 4 colors, or 640 x 200 with 2 colors (monochrome). In order to get the colors you see at 9:09, you had to use the Composite video output of the CGA card, connected to a TV or a monitor that supported composite video (IBM's did not). My first color monitor was from Zenith and it could switch from CGA to Composite. Notice the color shifting in the video, those are artifacts of pushing the composite video.
So I got my start on my first computer, a Commodore 64 with floppy drive. When my parents bought it for me for Christmas of 1984, they also got a copy of SubLogic Flight Simulator 2. I was 13 at the time and wanted to be a pilot when I grew up. I played the HELL out of that for years - taught myself how to navigate around using the VOR and NAV and ADF radios, learned how to take off and land, etc. It was wire frame, it was slow as molassas, especially since it had to pause all the time to load in new data off the C64's notoriously slow floppy drive, but it worked!
Played a lot of other simulators over the years as I moved on to the Amiga and then PC... More than I can count really, but here's a few:
F-15 Strike Eagle 1+2 (C64)
F-18 (Amiga)
Birds of Prey (Amiga)
Falcon 3.0 + Mig 29
Falcon 4.0
Back to Bagdad
Jane's F15
Then picked up FS 2004 - Century of Flight... Got back into Civilian flying, and eventually FSX. For a few years I was participating in the annual FS "Around the World Relay Race". But after MS cancelled Flight Sim development I got bored and went off and played other things, got into iRacing etc. Did dabble with FlightGear and X-Plane a bit at work for a couple projects that needed a flight simulator, and Prepar3D (since I work for Lockheed).
I did pick up 2020 but didn't play it much. It was cool, but eh, I just lost interest in flying around sightseeing with no real purpose. It's like the difference between driving a sports car down the highway and driving it on a race track with others - Yeah you can do it, but it's nowhere near as interesting and exhilerating.
That said, the new career mode and challenges and such have me excited for 2024 and I did preorder it. Looking forward to flying in VR, with my 3-axis motion rig and HOTAS setup, and having an actual REASON to fly beyond sightseeing.
Really great video / overview and a reminder of why we got into it and how lucky we are that Microsoft decided to jump back into this franchise in a serious and dedicated way.
I can’t wait for next week. Thanks for adding to the hype train.
A bit of a correction. The 3D scans you're talking about at 31:30 are using data captured by aircraft, not satellites. That's why it's mostly done for urban areas. Satellites can't view from a low enough angle, and don't have the necessary resolution for detailed scans of buildings.
Satellites can definitely see buildings, I’ve worked on making 3D scans from satellite images :)
Not only that but Satellites can provide lots of metadata about the areas they are scanning which can be used to produce a 3D simulation.
@@MaxLenormand sure, but the 3D scans of cities that Google and Bing (and by extension Flight simulator) use are absolutely derived from aircraft-captured data.
(Source: I worked for one of the data providers that they use)
@@Peterincan absolutely you are right remember spy planes are better than satellites. As from low altitude there would definitely better death perception(used to make3d).
but maybe microsoft combined both things.
@MaxLenormand Well, in the Noclip documentary, which you have obviously seen with how much you lifted from it, they explicitly say it was aircraft data.
Wow! You have some real story-telling talent. I was especially impressed by the part telling about the Covid period. I have been an airline pilot for 28 years but was struck by the beauty of MSFS in the months that I sat at home and though my company was about to expire. People always say: ‘Why do go fly a computer, when you just got home from flying a 787?!’ Well … like you said and showed … I can strap on a Spitfire an go fly over places I admired from high up and watch them from way down low. You can forget about everything and just see the world.
Dude, I appreciate you guys. I’ve only flown like 10 times. But I commend you for the absolute sacrifice of time for others. It is. It may seem like work yeah, but truly are connecting the world. But the time and patience you possess is worth the words to the least. How do you step away so easily? I’m a professional Tattooer, and my advantage is if I ever move anywhere I will be fine. I will be able to tattoo anyone in the area wherever I go. It’s easy. But I can’t imagine having to fly somewhere every day and the whole crashing thing, does it wear off? Is it a major concern moreso than a car accident? Or is it so save that it’s just another day? Obviously there are worry’s yeah, but I’ve always been interested in pilots views in general? Sorry to bother ya. Appreciate you!
@@Tattootin Hi. Well … where to start? ; There are a number of ways to look at it. Is it safe? Yes it is. Of course aircraft parts can stop working or get damaged. However unlike in a car, there is a lot of redundancy. So no single or mostly a even double failure will prevent the aircraft from landing safely. Secondly, we have very realistic (real) flight simulators in which we train a lot of bad situations and … every time we manage to come home safely. That builds not only skill and knowledge, but also confidence. Car accidents are usually mistakes made by to motorists. Aircraft operation is of course also guided by a third party called Air Traffic Control and a system that detects and warns for possible collisions. Etc.
So aircraft accidents, yeah … we always say: ‘Never say it won’t happen to you’ … because that is the big danger … Complacency! But mostly we look at certain incidents and accidents and go ‘How the hell is that possible?!’ But flying yourself vs being a passenger is like riding a bike; I’d rather steer the bike, than sit on the back.
Having this "see the world" game come out during 2020 was a surprisingly emotional experience, even just revisiting those trailers today brings up some of those feelings again.
Great job on this - from a fellow aviator/engineer (who was applying at Aces Studio in 2008/2009 btw). MSFS inspired me to get my pilot's license and launched my career into aerospace. I feel like there was a special flavor of disillusionment for the aviation/sim community - those who poured their passion into the sim - when Aces closed. Pretty apparent by how long we hung onto and supported an aging FSX title. So when the FS2020 tailer was (surprise) released at E3, I'm not sure if what I felt was catharsis, redemption, shock or just profound happiness, but this 34 year old dude wept absolute tears of joy (and maybe a few more times with the subsequent trailers). Not ashamed to admit it.
Haven't watched the entire video yet, but after the 10 first minutes, I had to thank you for reminding me how lucky I am to work in the incredible field of software editing. Sometimes we forget how outstanding the progress made has been in the last decades, and it truly reminded it to me.
An excellent walk down memory lane. I have seen many of the iterations of flight sim mentioned in this video. It’s amazing how much flight sim has improved since the early days. I think if there is an expiration date on maintaining the servers feeding our flight sim hunger Microsoft and others would be shooting themselves in the foot. They would be killing the very reason people have been upgrading their hardware and the peripherals necessary for the immersion into the world they created. Great work on this video. It’s in the same class as a documentary film. 👍🏼
Max, this video was absolutely amazing. Storytelling, video graphics, and detail, all excellent. Looking forward to watching this channel grow.
(this is the first time I've been motivated to pay a YT creator)
Thank you so much for your support, I deeply appreciate it
They way you put this together was amazing. Really high quality. Keep up the good work!
Great video, Max! I remember the first Novalogic Flight Sim, and have really enjoyed watching how FS has grown and improved over the years. This was a fun video to watch and remember the history of FS. Well done sir, well done!
It’s true! You can find just about any house, school, or workplace in MSFS. My tip is to fly out of a general aviation field near that community, take off in a Cessna 152 or other airplane that’s good at slow speeds and low altitudes, and start looking!😊
PS: you could probably even use a gossamer condor if that’s available, you might even be able to land there!
Didn’t even realize how long this video was until about 6 minutes in. I’m glad I stayed! This production quality is amazing. I am an aviation enthusiast and play a mobile flight sim called Infinite Flight. They don’t have 3d buildings around cities, but only around 1,000 or so airports spread across the globe. For a mobile flight sim it is pretty amazing. Matter of fact I was doing a virtual flight from Lisbon Portugal, to the Azores while watching this amazing video! Keep doing what you’re doing!
Great video, just wanted to say that yes, Ratatouille is a GREAT game. It is SO much fun. I played the crap out of it on the PS2 way back when, and even recently just about a year ago a pang of nostalgia got me to replay it, and it was just as good as I remembered it as a kid.
That's good to know! Thanks for sharing that!
What a great video, I had no idea how all this came about, yet I was grateful it did.
I become an Aircraft engineer because I love Aircraft. I became a simulated pilot in 2020 to "get out of the house" and pass the time in lockdown. I found my house, places I had worked and visited and more beautiful places I've never visited, and most likely never will visit. Every update makes it better looking and more accurate representation of the real world.
Many, many thanks to these people for making it happen and to you, for lifting the curtain for a glimpse behind the scenes.
Please submit this video for an Emmy. I’m sure this video can earn you at least a regional Emmy nomination! Amazing work
I have no ideas how Emmys are handed out, but the fact that you think this even comes close warms my heart, thank you
@@MaxLenormand This video was amazing. I haven't seen any of your other work yet, but I've been playing Flight Sim since the early 80's, and I didn't cringe once. You did the series justice, thank you!
I know FS since V1 and this docu shows so much passion, relational material, and just enough nostalgia to bring me right back. Thanks for this.
Max, this is excellent research and reporting! I subscribed immediately. All good wishes.
Hey Max, never seen any of your videos done but this is really well thought out and put together. thanks for the entire video. As a pilot myself and a Flight Engineer for my job, i appreciate the breakdown on the technical side of the world through the yes of the development teams that made the sims i grew up loving.
I wouldn't say it was "accidental." Jorg Neumann the project manager for MSFS stated from the start, the goal was to create a digital twin of the earth. Now with better data, and machine learning in MSFS2024, they are calling it "digital twin 2.0."
Small correction: Most imagery in Google Maps/Bing Maps for photogrammetry is acquired by aircraft, not satellite data. Even most of the 2D imagery is captured by airphoto companies, not satellite companies. Yes, satellite imagery is used heavily, but areas with any amount of detail are generally captured by aircraft.
Well done young man!! I really appreciate the effort and care that clearly went into the making of this documentary. I'm an old computer programmer and licensed pilot. I've played Microsoft Flight Simulator since it was first released for the PC in the 1980's. I really enjoyed the trip down memory lane. From a tech and engineering perspective, I really enjoyed the look behind the scenes and the story of the evolution of Flight Simulator. Thanks again!!
I have no qualms in saying that this presentation on flight simulation is the most outstanding work I have seen on the subject. Thank you for making it.
This was more emotional than i tought
Awesome video dude, when I was a kid, 5.1 and FSX were some of the most pivotal moments of my gaming history. Building a new PC or just installing the newest FS to see the upgraded graphics brings so much nostalgia man. Thanks for making this.
they didn't map anything, OpenStreetMap contributors did. also OpenStreetMap is not opensource (that applies to software), OpenStreetMap is open data. Being open is what made it available to third party to use them for free and only comply with OpenStreetMap license and attribute the data to us, the OpenStreetMap Contributors.
You're right, that's a simple nuance I didn't catch correctly. I wanted to use a term more people might be familiar with, but that's not exactly right, good point
I do think Microsoft deserves some credit though, they've done a lot of work tying everything together
@@MaxLenormandyou are very underrated this video was a joy to watch
MSFS 2004 is what sparked my love for aviation as a kid. I remember flying the Learjet around everywhere and just being amazed by how good the game looked at the time and how real it felt. Such nostalgia
I've always wondered how Asobo ever got involved in MSFS, this was very interesting to watch! Watched the full thing!!
Very well done! I think anyone with any interest in flight simulation should watch and enjoy seeing the progress Microsoft has made over the years at recreating the world. I remember vividly when we were all quarantined in our homes because of the Covid pandemic, separated from friends and loved ones, Microsoft gave us the ability to virtually experience the world in striking detail. It went a very long way towards reducing the depression and anxiety many of us were experiencing by not being able to travel. I think Asobo, Blackshark and Microsoft helped us maintain our sanity. I really appreciate the work you put into creating this video which perfectly documents the magic Microsoft gave us. Thanks!
this video is of a quality i would expect from a channel with over 100,000 subscribers, keep up the good work and im sure you will reach that in no time.
Bro!! You are a freaking story telling savant. I got sucked into this like I was listening to the “someone knows something” podcast! It was so much more than that though, the video editing that you put with it and the scene toward the end with the epic music was just magical. I felt transported. I haven’t played a flight sim since those early 90’s versions but I so enjoyed the story.
First time listener here. You picked up a sub.
This is truly an amazing video. Really well done.
When I was at MSFT building the PC I dreamed of pitching them to use latest images to get most updated imagery... but I do realized it wasn't that straight shot as just offering latest Landsat and serving them.
Appreciate the kind words Bruno, thank you!
As the Melbourne building shows, there are *some* updates, though I didn't find a good answer on how often they do update the basemaps
Landsat (and Copernicus, and alike) are great for coverage, but won't be high enough resolution for populated areas though. If you know if they've ever considered using it in Flight Sim I'd be so curious to know!
@@MaxLenormand I used to live in the same suburb as that (not) tall building in Melbourne. Even though I got a bit of a buzz knowing the entire world flight-sim community was focused on my home suburb of Carlton for a few weeks, I was extremely relieved when they fixed it. It was very frustrating flying around my home suburb with this ridiculous tall building that wasn't supposed to be there. It really destroyed the immersion for me.
@@brett22bt It’s a fun little story for me but I get it, a bit wild if that happened close to my place
@@MaxLenormand Yeah, it was fun at first, but the novelty didn't take long to wear off.
For near 20 yrs I've thought that Meteorologist could use MSFS as a weather display system. One could plot buoyancy as a low layer of green fog. Show low-level shear in a red hued fog. Chromatically had and anywhere you see a bright purple conditions ripe for a tornado.
Maybe wind streamlines or fire indices. Then just jump in the Cessna and check the weather out? Data Augmented Weather Display
Amazing documentary dude! Levels above even something you'd see on mainstream media, netflix, etc. This is perfection.
Unbelievable video. Well done. Brings back lots of memories and the joy of the next FS. I remember when FS would dictate my PC upgrade schedule.
To be honest I was not going to click on this video as I rarely watch videos longer than 10 minutes. Boy I’m so glad I clicked on your video. It is extremely well written and produced with an excellent voice to tell us the story. I have been using flight sim since the Apple days and continue to use it today. Saying that I really did not know the background story and now I do! I am now your latest subscriber. Can’t wait to see all your other videos.
Thank you for watching, I’m glad it was worth your time!
Funny how TH-cam is different things to different people. I rarely click on a video unless it’s over 15 minutes. In my mind, no depth, no point.
There are so many channels on TH-cam with long format informative videos, you should really start giving them more chances and you'll be surprised. Enjoy your new long format videos journey 😃
Nice video and as Bob Hope used to say: "thanks for the memories." I didn't own an Apple II (wanted to, but Dad didn't buy one - he worked for IBM). We did get one of the first IBM PCs and for Christmas I got MSFS 1.0. I can't even begin to count the hours I spent on that sim. As crude as it was, it was captivating to me as a nerdy teenager. In my late 50's, I'm still pretty much as excited every time I fire up MSFS as I was in 1982.
Great video, I was really moved by it. The production quality is insane and it was very inspiring seeing the ambitions, tech and background of the franchise.
Can I ask, what is the song at 19:10 , it reminds me of Legend of Zelda. Very holy and serene sounding
anyone?
@MaxLenormand Thank you for this brilliant essay. You just told the story of my computing and PC gaming life. Every version of the flight simulator you shared, I played, dreamed with, and learned with. I would say this is one of the best thought out, researched and presented pieces I have ever seen, and you deserve global recognition for this. Just wow, Max. Bravo.
Well done!!!! Thank you for this amazing video. Sharing it with my community.
Thank you, that’s really kind of you!
Brilliant. My first sim was SubLogic FS on a PC XT clone back in 1985. I’ve flown every version since, except FS2000 which was a shocker.
Thank you for bringing back so many memories. Great video.
40:25 It's funny because this used to be one of the weakest points of the simulator. But with msfs2024 this will become one of its greatest strengths.
Not only does everything from the ground now look incredibly detailed, but you can now step out of your plane and explore that same world on foot as if it were an first person open-world game
40:33 In msfs2024 the simulator will only take up 28gb since most of everything will be from the cloud. Not only will the earth will be a thousand times better than that of msfs2020 but it will also take up a thousand times less space.
It's fucking black magic what these guys do. They're in a league of their own.
You have a great talent for storytelling. Your style is very engaging. I could not stop watching this video. Well done!
My whole childhood in this video, I started flight Sim in 95 when it was still on floppy. I can't wait for 2024
Great video thank you
Great video, really enjoyed revisiting the history. I've played every version of Microsoft Flight Sim as I was lucky to have a father who was in IT and had computers in the house from 1979 onwards. Somewhere in a box I still have my 1982 manual. Today, with VR and good controllers I get to lose myself from the stresses of life in a way thats pretty close to my experience flying light aircraft. Sims and real flying are great escapism and I can't wait for MSFS 2024 to be released to let me mind relax and enable us to explore the world in more detail than ever before.
This is one of the best documentaries I’ve seen on TH-cam! Excellent work, and inspiring!
There was a flight sim before this I used to play which was just words. No images at all. And as a kid it was honestly still super exciting!
This should be an award winning documentary. It is so good.
In the early days, Bruce Artwick was still back-porting enhancements he'd written for Microsoft to other computer platforms and selling it as "Flight Simulator II". I started playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0 on my dad's Compaq, but the version I probably played the most back in the day was Flight Simulator II for the Atari ST, which came out between MSFS 2.0 and 3.0, and had a lot of the features that ended up in 3.0. Microsoft actually released a licensed version of MSFS for the original Macintosh, and I think a lot of the work Artwick put in the Atari ST/Amiga version came from that.
There were no textures, not even a real lighting model--everything was flat solid-colored polygons, and it was only showing a few frames a second. But somehow, it all invited this open-ended exploration of its little virtual world. FSII for ST's crown jewel was a map of the San Francisco Bay Area, which was more detailed than the others they'd had up to that point, and the default airport had moved from Chicago Meigs to Oakland International to show it off. I spent so much time just flying around San Francisco, and it made me weirdly familiar with the local geography before I actually visited the place.
These days, I use a Mac and it can't run modern MSFS, so I play with X-Plane, which now looks graphically primitive by comparison (though it'd have been mind-boggling 20 years ago; it looks sort of like what MS Flight Simulator X would if development had never stopped) and doesn't have streaming maps, but the planes are really realistic. Some of the kind of simulation hobbyists who build cockpits in their houses still swear by it. Unfortunately I don't see X-Plane surviving competition with MSFS over the long haul, but on the Mac it's the best we have. But since X-Plane isn't dependent on servers (at least for *that*), it might have a longer afterlife than one that is.
I started with MSFS 98 as a kid. I'm now an airline pilot and I STILL fly microsoft flight sim in my spare time. Love seeing all the focus on it these days.
5:38 glow-sing??
Amazing video, best history of MSFS I've seen!
Also amazing how MS and Asobo made this epic 2020 version and the dropped the ball so hard on 2024, with bugs and issues (beyond the initial server meltdown) galore. Really hope they can fix it over the next year!!
im sorry but ram was really not the limiting factor. sure you need ram but even a few polys on screen where extremely taxing on the cpu. even if you had infinite amounts of ram, the CPUs of the time just couldn't handle more then a few dozen unfilled polys at 3 to 4 fps.
Great video, thank you.
Every time any video taking about MSFS2020, I can't stop my emotion being moved of having a chance having a glance of my home city,
during one of the hardest time in human history, when some countries still got lock down and we were still wearing mask everyday in the city that I was living.
Being realist is one thing. Having a chance "realistically" visiting the world and home city, during the hardest time, is another "thing".
There were many games with realistic game world or fantastic design or fun gameplay in the decade, but when mentioning the greatest game in the decade,
my vote will still be on the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
And then to find out lockdowns and masks We're all unnecessary makes it even worse.
26:19 You missed a big failure Microsoft made after FSX: Microsoft tried releasing a replacement to the Flight Simulator series - "Microsoft Flight". 🤢 Rumor has it that Microsoft wanted to prove they could do just as good a job as the folks at ACE did, but the end product was dog feces. 💩
I’m a editorial videographer, real pilot and simmer. You’ve done an outstanding job with this from all aspects. Thank you!!
That’s some high praise, thank you!
Video begins at 38:09
What a fantastic video to understand the evolution of beauty in MSFS, so in depth and really well made
wow this was an incredible video
Thank you!
I recently splurged on a gaming computer and MS flight sim, along with VR goggles for immersion. The idea was to fly again after having given it up in real life a couple decades ago. I was shocked when I realized it's really an open world game where the game world is the WHOLE earth in one to one scale and really pretty good fidelity. While I enjoy the airplanes, I think the best thing is picking a place and just having a look at it. Tierra Del Fuego. The Faroe Islands. Anywhere. It's weird, because I don't think most users of the sim even think about it being in the same category as Genshin or Legend of Zelda, but not only is it, but it absolutely smashes the games in that category.
Beautifully explained! This video should be one of the top trending videos on TH-cam
I played the flight sim on the old Plato IV systems at Iowa State (1974-75), systems were hosted at University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana, coincidentally, the University that Bruce Artwick attended.
You're wrong! FSX did actually simulate the entire planet and let you fly anywhere
Since at least FS2000 if i recall correctly. Xplane had also had it for a while.
A great history, I've been playing with Flight Sim since the mid 90s. It's a sign of how far they've come when flew over a friend's cottage in a remote bay on a Scottish offshore island to see it rendered almost perfectly. That one normal window was shown as a bay window seems rather trivial in world context!
Did I miss the "accidentally" part?
It's a click bait title. Are you new on TH-cam?
@elliott7268 It is obviously a rhetorical question, are you new on earth?
I think “accidentally” meant that every other map we see online is not as good as it should be. Because every other detail that needs to be represented is on a competitor or an opensource platform.
What microsoft did was use all of these and the collection they created made the best map that we can find, so much so that microsofts maps in game was used by other companies as a resource. “Accidentally” meant that they did not intend to be a resource for any other purpose, they just wanted to make their game as stunning as possible.
I grew up in New York near JFK airport. I use to ride my bike up to the airport and lay it down in the grass right near the perimeter fence. I would watch the British Airways and Air France Concords take off and land as well as many 747's and other big jets. I went to the library where they had a copy of flight simulator running on a Trs80 computer. I fell in love with aviation and went on to graduate from Aviation High-school in New York, where I learned how an aircraft functions. I have been with American Airlines in Technical Operations for 39 years. Thank God for Flight Simulator ✈️
I worked for one for the first PC shops in the UK in 1981 and was at IBM in Basingstoke the day IBM announced the PC was on sale in the UK. A few months later we were sent a pre-release version of Flight Simulator on a 360K floppy disk (might have been 2). I remember myself and 2 other techies trying to get it to work. We couldn't work out how to run it. It had moving graphics, not just text. At about midnight, we phoned IBM tech support (not Microsoft) in Basingstoke and I remember all the office staff had gone home but the security staff on the front desk talked us through setting up the colour graphics card (CGA) and a 5153 Color monitor. It is simply mind blowing to see how it has developed. To have played any part in its development is a badge of honour.
I learned a little computer basic in high school in the late 70's. If you were an exceptional student (nerd🙂) you were allowed to use the punched tape machine for your programs, the rest of us had to make our programs by filling in the little boxes with a number 2 pencil on a stack of punch cards.
My sister came home from college with a Vic-20 and I got more familiar with computers. In 1982 my best friend and neighbor came home from college with his computer and a bootlegged copy of Flight Simulator. He and his dad had been trying to fly on it for days and were getting frustrated. He came over to get me to see if I could help them, I had been in flight school for a few months. They had been able to take off and fly a little but could never land. I got the Cessna in the air and showed them the settings for a landing and I greased it. Man, that was a long time ago.....
GREAT video sir! Well done!
Amazing video! I am not one to usually comment on videos, but I‘d like to, on this one. Growing up, it‘s always been a dream for me to fly. I didn‘t get to take a flight until my late teenage years, for a family vacation to Florida, for which we had to save for a long time (I‘m from Germany). Today, I spend a substantial amount of my spare time flying whatever routes come to my mind in FS2020. This video helped me understand how all of it works on a rational level, but more importantly (to me), it got me on an emotional level, resonating with my childhood dream and how technology made it possible for me to have these amazing feelings at home at my desk by just „playing the game“. Also, the profuction quality of this video is outstanding! Thank you for all your effort! ❤
Oh wow. That was great! I never played any Flight Simulator. I'm not even that interested in flying as in real life it's a bit stressful experience for me, but this video was so damn good! Thanks!