History of Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator began as a set of articles on computer graphics, written by Bruce Artwick throughout 1976, about flight simulation using 3-D graphics. When the editor of the magazine told Artwick that subscribers were interested in purchasing such a program, Artwick founded subLOGIC Corporation to commercialize his ideas. At first the new company sold flight simulators through mail order, but that changed in January 1979 with the release of Flight Simulator (FS) for the Apple II. They soon followed this up with versions for other systems and from there it evolved into a long-running series of computer flight simulators.
Computer-graphics specialist Bruce Artwick and pilot and marketing student Stu Moment were roommates at the University of Illinois. A2FS1 Flight Simulator, their first product after forming subLOGIC, had black and white wireframe graphics, featured a very limited scenery consisting of 36 tiles (in a 6 by 6 pattern, which roughly equals a few hundred square kilometers), and provided a very basic simulation (with only one aircraft simulated). Despite this, it ended up being one of the most popular Apple II applications of the early 1980s.
The simulator was later ported to the TRS-80 Model I, which had only rudimentary graphics capability. To squeeze the simulator into the TRS-80 limited memory and display, subLOGIC saw it necessary to drop the instrument panel and reduce the resolution. Flight Simulator for the TRS-80 therefore has the most simplistic graphics of all versions of Flight Simulator (gameplay video in a modern emulator).
Flight Simulator sold 30,000 copies by June 1982, tied for third on Computer Gaming World's list of top sellers. Later subLOGIC released updated versions for both the Apple II and TRS-80 on 5 1⁄4 inch diskettes. The updates included enhanced terrain, help menus, and a bomb sight.
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