Sep 27th, 2020 - Category: Change
The most recent version of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator was just released and highlights how much computing has evolved over the decades. Interestingly, Microsoft didn’t develop the first version, but licensed it from Bruce Artwick’s company, SubLogic, in the 1980s. The whole fascinating history can be found here and here, but to give you a visual idea of its beginnings, here is a screenshot from the very first version:
And here is what it looks like today with its photorealistic scenery and cockpit instrumentation:
Microsoft also released a video with clips from its entire history. I started playing it around version 2 on an ancient Apple ][+ computer and was immediately enthralled despite the crude graphics. I continued to play it over the years, enjoying the added complexity of better graphics, dynamic weather, jet aircraft, human in-game Air Traffic Controllers, and detailed operating procedures for each aircraft until I finally got a real pilot’s license.
The development of Flight Simulator highlights Bruce Artwick’s revolutionary thinking bringing motion graphics to the world of early, primitive personal computer games. When computing was stuck in the era of text-only displays (remember that the first version was three years BEFORE Windows), he wrote his Master’s thesis on “A versatile computer generated dynamic flight display.” As one of the precursors to the modern multi-billion dollar computer gaming industry, he broke new ground, showing the others that followed what might be possible. Artwick’s out-of-the-box thinking reminds me of a quote from a recent article by Paul Graham about the importance of this type of thinking: “Why do the independent-minded need to be protected, though? Because they have all the new ideas. To be a successful scientist, for example, it’s not enough just to be right. You have to be right when everyone else is wrong. Conventional-minded people can’t do that.”
Maintaining a culture where this kind of independent thought is possible is a major challenge today when manipulation of facts is rampant. This could be an interesting topic for a future post, but in the meantime an excellent discussion of some of the issues around free speech versus ethical moderation can be found in a recent episode of the Postlight Podcast.
Finally, if you haven’t been keeping up on the video game industry, you might enjoy this Reddit thread about the challenges an older man who has just started playing videos games for the first time in his life has faced. Buried deep in the 500+ comments is an insightful explanation of how those crazy video game controllers with dozens of buttons evolved. Especially amazing when you see a photo of the one of the originals!