The End for Microsoft Flight Simulator?
Despite the demoralizing sack of Flight Simulator series developer ACES per Microsoft's 5,000 jobs attrition plan, Microsoft says it remains "committed" to the Flight Simulator franchise. Make that a well-worn franchise, in computer game years – perhaps the oldest.
It started with University of Illinois whiz kid Bruce Artwick in the late 1970s. Artwick's the guy who got the idea on its feet. Most folks peg Flight Simulator's birth in 1982, when Artwick officially licensed the series to Microsoft, but he was actually selling copies per his startup subLOGIC ("the computer flight people") in 1980 for the Apple II. In fact that's how I remember it: As an Apple program first.
My first serious run at the sim wasn't until 1991 on a 386. I'm sure some of you could trump me with your TRS-80s and Commodore 64s (there were versions for them, too). Sure, I had a C-64, but I didn't really catch the flying bug until Flight Simulator 3.0.
