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Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

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Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#31

Post by wkat4242 »

flohofwoe wrote: post #20
tstrimple wrote: post #9

Interestingly I've always thought that Elite was the first game with 3d graphics, but the timeline doesn't seem to agree. Elite was developed in 1982 (published in 1984), while MSFS was developed in 1976. I wonder why Elite is still considered by many to be the first game with 3d graphics. https://www.frontier.co.uk/our-games/our-gameography/elite > "Elite set many firsts, and was the first genuine 3D game on home co…

Probably because home computers like the C64 were a lot more popular (and cheaper) than boring "office PCs" in the 80's (at least in Europe, don't know how it was in the US).

But flight simulator was made for 8 bit computers. It only came to PC after. The first version was made for the Apple II by Sublogic.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#32

Post by wkat4242 »

bitL wrote: post #14
alex_sf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All three of your examples also apply to the internet.

Since the VC-backed beginning of "social", Internet became a shared cesspool with gamed interactions. Not really a fulfillment of a dream of the majority of humanity.

Bombing raids on crowded cities weren't exactly a dream of humanity either.

As with any new tech it can be used for both good and evil.

The internet actually has a lot in common with human flight. Both made the world a smaller place.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#34

Post by empressplay »

No it didn't.

"Airfight is an early 3D graphics-based multi-user flight simulator, created on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Control Data Corporation (CDC) PLATO system in the early 1970s.[1][2][3]

The software was the first ever 3D flight simulator and the first multi-player flight simulator.[2] The first version was developed by Brand Fortner with Kevin Gorey in the summer of 1974.[4] After its release, it became the most popular game on PLATO until Empire became more popular. This software probably inspired the UIUC student Bruce Artwick to start the company Sublogic,[4] which was acquired and later became Microsoft Flight Simulator.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airfight

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#35

Post by tstrimple »

layer8 wrote: post #21
tstrimple wrote: post #9

Interestingly I've always thought that Elite was the first game with 3d graphics, but the timeline doesn't seem to agree. Elite was developed in 1982 (published in 1984), while MSFS was developed in 1976. I wonder why Elite is still considered by many to be the first game with 3d graphics. https://www.frontier.co.uk/our-games/our-gameography/elite > "Elite set many firsts, and was the first genuine 3D game on home co…

Your quote says “on home computers”. IBM PCs, on which MSFS ran on, were not considered home computers [0]. In the 1990s, home computers were finally displaced by the PC (and by consoles) for gaming, and the PC effectively took over the role that home computers used to serve. But the term “home computer” wasn’t used any more, at least partly because PCs were always also business computers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.or…

That makes sense. I missed the early days of home computers, but still cut my teeth on a hand-me-down Tandy 1000 in 1995. So I was playing games like Star Trader, Elite and Kings Quest on a decade old computer a couple decades after the games were released. I was fortunate that my initiation into PC gaming coincided with the end of life for all of these games (thanks to the shift to CD installation) so bargain bin software was a GOLD MINE for me.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#36

Post by doctor_eval »

hummus_bae wrote: post #15
doctor_eval wrote: post #6

I used to play the first version of subLogic’s T80-FS1 flight sim on my TRS-80 clone. That is all I came here to say.

I always wondered how it worked. It seems to me that with its limited hardware, it can only display ground features, not whole 3D surroundings. Am I completely wrong? Is it something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umZYSY1fSQk

"that video isn't available any more" :(

it was really basic (but awesome for its time). You basically flew over a flat grid - literally a grid - so the only thing "3d" about it was that you could see this 3d grid rotating and moving about. At one edge of the grid was a 2D "mountain" which was orthogonal to the ground-grid.

I found a screenshot here: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/39/85/9c/39859c5ccf2e08207f72...

If memory serves, one of the grid boxes in the top-left of that image contains the enemy base. You could dogfight against two other planes.

I mean... they were single pixel planes.

I think that TRS80 "graphics resolution" was 128x48 so you know. It would probably fit inside the letter O on today's hardware. Which is pretty cool when you think about it.

Here's another link with lots of screenshots:

http://www.trs-80.org/t80-fs1/

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#39

Post by alex_sf »

bitL wrote: post #18
alex_sf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not fair at all. Unless you're prepared to say that, given the opportunity, you would turn the internet off, this is just rhetoric.

Dunno, I remember early Internet; I think we will see it getting in a much worse shape with ChatGPT/Stable diffusion-like tech deployed at scale. Pointless interaction with bots all the time on bot-generated websites with viewers being gamified to spend as much money/attention as possible, original human-made content disappearing everywhere.

Again, this is rhetoric, if you're not prepared to turn it off now.

It's also ascribing some unassailable quality to human-made content that would make it strictly superior to AI generated. There's no reason to think that, likely sooner rather than later, AI generated content would be more interesting and relevant.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#40

Post by eesmith »

empressplay wrote: post #34

No it didn't. "Airfight is an early 3D graphics-based multi-user flight simulator, created on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Control Data Corporation (CDC) PLATO system in the early 1970s.[1][2][3] The software was the first ever 3D flight simulator and the first multi-player flight simulator.[2] The first version was developed by Brand Fortner with Kevin Gorey in the summer of 1974.[4] After its…

PLATO is the forgotten predecessor to a lot of technology.

It had group chat, digital emojis, 3D networked games, touch screen, and more, in the 1970s.

To add to the 3D game list, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasim : "a 32-player 3D networked space flight simulation game and first-person space shooter[1] developed by Jim Bowery for the PLATO computer network and released in March 1974."

That is was only available at a few schools, most notably UIUC, helps explain the lack of wide cultural knowledge.

For more, read "The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture." by HN user brianstorms, or https://spectrum.ieee.org/sxsw-2018-a-look-back-at-the-1960s... (comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615420 ) or https://www.vice.com/en/article/pa3vvg/the-greatest-computer... .

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