Hey all,

I started off with FS98, I loved it!
The graphics were quite appealing
http://facstaff.unca.edu/tlbrown/fsshot1.jpg

Did anyone else also have this version as your first? Or older versions?

I started at v4.0 in '89.

FS2002 for me I still used both FS2002 and FS2004 until a year or so ago, when I switched to just FS2004.

FS98 for me too. My nan bought me an expansion pack for FS98, not realising it was an expansion pack, so my dad went out and bought FS98.

Gee was that thing different. The ground was coloured in blocks about the size of a 737- of solid colour- and the aircraft models were appaling. Performance was pretty bad too on our Pentium S 110MHz machine. Weird to think I get better performance now even with all the bells and whistles of FSX than what I got with FS98 when I had it.

Ashamed as I am to admit it, flight sim really got me into flying. Dont get me wrong, I liked it before, but FS really made aviation stand out from other modes of transport.

The only flight sim I possess is the Century of Flight, 2004. It taught me a lot about flying.
I must get back into it again though, as I loved the lessons, especially the flight in the Cessna 172. Good fun, but things have moved on apace with photos of planes taking off, landing. etc. now in sims. I think I got left behind.

I started with FS98 but never installed FS 2000 or 2002, now I have FS9 and I love it. I have uploaded quite a few screenshots at www.fsimages.net just incase if you guyz are interested.

Regards,
HamiltonAir

Hmm I guess Glenn beat all of us by far
FS 4.0
http://fshistory.simflight.com/fsvault/msfs4.htm

Oh my
You gotta check out that 747 (second screenshot)

that big 'ol beast of a 747 has pretty weak landing gear! haha

Can't remember what version it was, but the oldest I played was on a B/W Mac Plus around 1994. There were of course already newer versions at the time.

Here's a screenshot of me running it on my PC inside a Mac emulator a few years ago. Pity I've lost that drive image with all the old games I had. I might still know someone who has some archives I could recover though...

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b105/Kilrah/FSMac.jpg

I tried downloading FS4 with the link Going round Again gave, but it didnt work, so I tried FS5, and it loads, but seems to be at an accelerated sim rate, and whenever I try to do anything it says there is not enough memory. It says it needs about 560K..... I have 1Gb RAM. Something must be wrong, even FSX works better than that

A computer that runs FSX but not FS5 Scary thought.
Drats I wanted to download FS4 and try it out when I have some time.

FS4 may work for you. It downloads fine, but when I try to run it it just says that FS4.pif is wrong or in the wrong location or somehting. I cant remember exactly. As you can tell, I have a great attention to detail.

When it says that you don't have enough memory, 560K required, it is referring to available conventional memory. Before windows loads, PCs have 640K of conventional memory. Once Windows is running, very few users will have as much as 560K left in the virtual machine due to all the programs loaded with windows.
Any new virtual machines Windows tries to start inherit the aspects of the virtual machine Windows loaded itself into when it loaded.
Try limiting the startup programs and anti-virus, firewalls, until you get only the system tray and Explorer running after starting Windows. Using system monitor to show conventional memory, the goal is to start your machine, load Windows, and end up with 560K or more of conventional (or DOS) memory available.

Now I feel like a noob. As I just truelly got into aviation and understood it more with FSX :-). When I got the FS2002 to compare the performance between the two I was utterly utterly disappointed at how they were so different and from that day. I tried FS2004 for awhile but lost the disks so that was a big loss for me so now I'm here and kicking it with FSX :-). But now I never really bash FSX for any of it's faults at it has come so far from some blocks to this awesome high tech program. Which really beats them all even Flight Gear >.<!

Glen, thanks for the help. But I think its slightly more convienient for me just to click on the FSX icon

Ahhhh, you're just lazy. Hehehe!






(Kiddin')

Just delete the .pif file. Then run FS.bat, the program says it's only certified to work under DOS, wait like 30 secs till it disappears. Then it will give you some configuration options and eventually run at the end. Works here.

Aah, conventional memory. Even in the DOS days some games needed a dedicated minimalist startup disk with about nothing on it to be able to have enough of it for the game to run...

I began with FS 95, I thought it was so cool.
Then when I played the 2000 version, I was blown away.

I started with FS 98 (with no joystick)! But this was quickly replaced with FS 2000. I did not enjoy it that much, I never could land the large aircraft which were the ones I liked flying the most. This made me incredibly angry and frustrated (I was only 10 years old!). Also, despite countless efforts, my dad and I could never get an aircraft on an ILS approach to land. This is something I do with complete ease on good old FS 2004.
Those times were fun though now that I look back at it...

Morris

I necver started on Flight Simulator, i started on Flight Unlimited. It was an old sim game made in the late 1990s by Looking Glass Studios. I started off with Flight Unlimited II which is now $4 at Circuit City. I had 5 planes to choose from: Trainer, Beaver, Baron, Mustang and Arrow. I was restricted to only the bay area - Sacramento to Reid-Hillview and that's it. Flight Unlimited III came out with the Beechjet which was all i ever flew. I was restricted to the Puget Sound area - form Olympia to Everett. But you could expand to the San Fran area if you had the FU2 CD. Lots of fun, then i got FS2K2, which leaves me where i am today. I unfortunately have no link for you, b/c the game isnt very popular, but Google it and you'll get a few results.

I went from all trucks, to FS2000, then airplanes, airplanes, airplanes... and bought FS2002, then FS98, FS95.. which yeah is weird. I have FS2004 now and I don't plan to get FSX yet until a new computer. I am still trying to get all the others below FS95.

Check the link above, there are all the oldest versions!

I started with FS98 ad now I'm flying with FS2004. I plan to get X-Plane.

Speaking of X-Plane, is that an older version from Microsoft? Neverheard of it... any info you know about it?
-Zach

I heard, X-Plane is muuuchhh better than FSX. It's a big simulator with all things of the world simulated. The Lufthansa train with this sim. More info: http://x-plane.com/default.html

WOW! Awesome graphics!

Wow. Dedicated hard drive?

Hehe, no.

Shesh, 60 gigs and they can't even get Seattle right

60 Gigs of the entire word for only 50$, impressive!

http://www.global-scenery.org/MONSTER/pict..._4096x3072.html

Breathtaking

...for only 50$, impressive!...[/quote]

Yes, 50$ for a complete world scenery and a real as it gets simulator is a very low price.

But I think this will drag the computers performance, too.

@AName: They can't even get seattle right? Is the result of seattle not very attractive?

sincerely Yours!

I started with FS2000. Before then, I was oblivious to the world of flying so I owe a hell of a lot to that game! God knows how many times I read the big thick, free pilot's hand book the first few shipments of the game came with, taught me everything I know!

Cheers,
Chris

Well, not like Seattle was very attractive to start with

But I'm talking about the placement of the large/important buildings and the shape/color of them.

fs2002 was mine. Then i told my dad about fsx and he bought it for me as a christmas present. Then my fs2002 didn't work so i swiched .

X plane uses a physics engine to model how an aircraft would behave in flight. MSFS uses numbers, and then through some sort of computing wizardry turns this into flight characteristics. Unfortunately, these are not always hugely accurate i.e. try spinning an aircraft on MSFS... you'll be hard done by to find one that can do so properly.

I've seen that scenery package, and to me it looks a bit disappointing. It uses photographs of similar areas to reperesent the environment of what you're flying over, but doesnt show it exactly i.e. it would be useless for VFR navigation using real maps. There are packages out there- I have on covering England and Wales- which uses aerial photographs to make up the ground textures. The result? I can see my house, my school, and every other city, town, village, road, footpath etc in England and Wales, meaning I can use my VFR charts. The downside? To install it all at maximum quality will take over 60Gb- and thats not the entire world. Ive installed it all, but at varying qualities, meaning my hard disk has over 35Gb of scenery on there. Combine with the fact that FSX is quite space hungry itself, and I find the simulation taking a considerable chunk of my hard disk.

I imagine thats a bit more than the first version of MSFS. "What!? 300Kb!? Not sure if my computer has that much in the first place...... !!!????? 120Kb RAM? No way!" etc

FS2002. Just a thing of the past now,...
However, FS9 & FSX are just as good, if not better.

FS 1 I'm afraid (I've said elsewhere that I'm an old fart). I used to sell loads of these things to computer stores so that they could demonstrate that their machines were "compatible" (in the days when this sort of thing mattered). Not long after that joined a small little software company called some-or-other-soft based in Seattle. I was No. 220 in the World and 11 in the UK. I also had my hands round each beta and production version (Mac & PC) as soon as they were released until I left in 1989. Happy days!

PM

i started with 98, i did not find it that good but i have 2004 right now and enjoy that alot more

Haha that's really awesome
Didn't think we'd get anyone that started with the very first one to post here.
Good stuff.

FS98..before it i never would have imagined that i would ever be interested in aviation.

I started off with FS2002. I like the game and it was fun, but it can't even begin to compare to FS2004.