DOS Games Archive Newsletter
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com
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Issue 17 - Sunday, December 10, 2000
Contents
What's new?
+ Lots of games added
+ New message board
Feature: Microsoft Flight Simulator
+ 1977 to 1980: the alpha years
+ 1980 to 1983: FS 1 becomes an instant hit
+ 1984 to 1987: FS 2
+ 1988 to 1994: FS 3 and 4
+ 1995 to 1997: FS 5 becomes FS 95
+ 1998: FS98 and the dynasty gets a few nephews
+ 2000: FS 2000
+ Conclusion
Wanted!
+ Dave
+ Can't remember the title
+ Captain Comic II Code Sheet
+ Walkthroughs for Blackstar: Episode One
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WHAT'S NEW?
+ Lots of games added
In the previous weeks, we added a lot of games to the
archive. Here they are. If you want to download one of
them, go to DOS Games Archive (www.dosgamesarchive.com).
- Blocks from Hell
- Darts
- Digger
- Drugwar
- Duke Nukem 3D
- Epic Baseball
- Grand Theft Auto
- Hexen: Beyond Heretic
- Hocus Pocus
- Hugo's House of Horrors
- Hugo 2: Whodunit
- Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom
- Keen 1: Marooned on Mars
- Keen 6: Aliens ate my Babysitter
- Keen Dreams
- Mean Mini Golf
- MechWar
- Lemmings 2: The Tribes
- Quake
- SimCity Classic
- Sopwith
- Sopwith 2
- Tomb Raider
- Tennis Elbow
- Ugh!
- Velcro Mind
We will add more games in the future. Stay tuned!
+ New message board
In a previous webpoll we asked the visitors whether we
needed a new message board. More than 50% percent of
them said they would like a new one with more features.
So we've installed a new one. You can take a look at the
following URL:
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/msgboard
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FEATURE: MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR
By Doug Farmer
Microsoft Flight Simulator: a 23-year-old software dynasty
that just keeps getting better and better.
+ 1977 to 1980: the alpha years
Several decades ago, when PC was an acronym that more often
would be translated to mean "pretty-cool," a young software
engineer by the name of Bruce Artwick was looking for a
job. Artwick shared a human dream that pre-dates recorded
time--he wanted to fly or, at the very least, simulate it
and produce a bit of cool demo-code for his next job
interview.
+ 1980 to 1983: FS 1 becomes an instant hit
Fortunately, Artwick did not end up getting tucked into an
obscure 6"x6" cubicle of some faceless company's software
development dungeon. Instead, early in 1978, he formed
subLOGIC and decided to turn 10,000 bytes of cool and
fluid assembler code into something that would go on to
create one of those defining moments in the history of
computing--Flight Simulator version 1.0 for the leading
edge personal computers of 1980: the Apple II+, the
Tandy/Radio Shack (TRS)-80, the Commodore 64, and the
graphically stunning Atari 800.
With Flight Sim's first release subLOGIC had grown to
include two additional members, Dave Denhart, and Charles
Guy, who together with Artwick, unleashed just under 16
Kbytes of code that was sold, along with the manual, on a
single audiocassette tape; a product that would create a
seemingly simple black and white line art world of limited
dimensions, but one that would nonetheless go on to immerse
thousands of flight sim fans high in the skies of the PCs
very first simulated reality.
+ 1984 to 1987: FS 2
Meanwhile, cash rich from their recent sweetheart deal with
IBM involving a new product called MS-DOS, a bunch of
code-heads decided that buying a slice of subLOGIC could
prove to be a "fruitful" investment. Enter Microsoft and
the introduction of solid 3D models into the world of FS
with the release of version 2. Microsoft's arrival also
introduced contention and disagreement within the
management ranks of subLOGIC and late in 1984 Artwick,
while still very much involved with subLOGIC, realized he
was no longer in the captain's chair and formed the Bruce
Artwick Organization, or BAO for short. For a time BAO was
an independent company that would go off to create several
of the premier add-ons to the FS family. In particular was
the FS Aircraft Factory that many fans far preferred over
the similar offering from Microsoft/subLOGIC--The Flight
Simulator Aircraft Scenery Designer. Eventually BAO would,
like its predecessor subLOGIC, be absorbed by the
collective that is Microsoft with Artwick consulting to
the new keepers of the FS code in Redmond, WA.
+ 1988 to 1994: FS 3 and 4
subLOGIC spent the next seven years dancing with the giant
releasing one of the first F-4 Jet Simulators for the new
kings of the PC hardware world (the Amiga and Atari line),
cryptically entitled Jet along with a healthy collection
of beautiful scenery add-ons disks.
In 1988 FS Version 3 arrived, and Artwick, along with most
of subLOGIC's development team headed off to work fulltime
at BAO. By the next year, FS Version 4 had arrived jammed
packed onto a single 1.44 Mbyte 3.5" floppy disk. Perhaps
it was due to a fan community (that now measured over a
hundred thousand) asking for more, or maybe it was
Microsoft still digesting their now total acquisition of
subLOGIC. In retrospect, maybe it was just another facet
of the dead-zone that was the world of PC gaming during
the early 1990's, but for flight sim fans the master
caution alarm was now quietly blinking. Father's were now
showing their ten year old sons a piece of software magic,
that while visually stunning for some strange reason,
couldn't quite measure up to the original that they
remembered.
+ 1995 to 1997: FS 5 becomes FS 95
Along with the mega-buck marketing splash that was the
arrival of Windows 95, the year 1995 also saw the arrival
of FS Version 5, a.k.a. Flight Simulator 95. Unfortunately,
there was little rejoicing. The bugs, stodgy performance,
and inaccurate flight models that FS 4 introduced six years
earlier turned out to be even more extreme in the new
world of Pentium computing. Fan's flooded the emerging
forums of the Internet and blasted the Usenet Flight Sim
groups with fear that 15 years of immersive enjoyment had
one wing on fire and was about to go down in flames. To
compound the conspiracy theories even further, the close
of 1995 saw Microsoft absorb BAO and subLOGIC consumed by
Sierra who was ready to create the next crash and burn
flight sim product--Pro Pilot. Three years later Sierra
would give up subLOGIC's last legacy stating the title
"did not meet its success criteria."
+ 1998: FS98 and the dynasty gets a few nephews
Artwick got busy as a consultant to Microsoft. Microsoft
got busy with people and cash and suddenly, thanks in no
small part to the explosion of the visual power the new 3D
video hardware delivered to your PC, the world of flight
simulation went ballistic. FS version 6 hit the streets
under the trade name of Flight Simulator 98 and, as the
first true cousin of a bit of demo code whipped up by
Artwick 20 years earlier, we got guns and the Battle of
Britain with Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator version 1.
There was much rejoicing...
The Lear Jet was better. The Cessna 182 got retractable
landing gear, and for those yearning to fly more of the big
iron that the Boeing 747 of FS 95 delivered, a highly
detailed Boeing 737 was soon performing controlled circular
navigational patterns around the outer marker of a busy
Chicago's O'Hare airport inside our PCs. While FS 98's
introduction of rotating wing aircraft in the form of the
Bell 206B Jet Ranger helicopter at first confused the fans
of fixed wing flight, the writing on the wall soon began
to become clear. Not only wasn't Flight Simulator about to
crash and burn, it had recovered. With flaps dropped to
their max and our one surviving engine throttled to 110%
we were at least limping towards something wonderful.
Supersonic flight, 3D-mesh based terrain, real-time
weather, and leading edge graphics.
+ 2000: FS 2000
Earlier this year the seventh generation of the Flight
Simulator legacy arrived with the release of FS 2000 along
with major upgrades to its two cousins: Combat Flight
Simulator and the online world of Microsoft's Fighter Ace
title. Crimson Skies, the second cousin to what was once
just black and white lines etched on the monitor of an
Apple II+ arrived and layered in fun to the family.
+ Conclusion
Behind the scenes what had begun as a development team of
three had since grown to over 130 developers, artists, and
testers that now envelop the flight simulation division at
Microsoft. One that was happy to not only share the coolest
bits of codes between flight simulation based titles, but
also aggressively continue the support for third party
mods via SDKs that has turned Artwick's original idea into
an industry unto its own. All of this has made FS into
what is becoming a totally modular, snap-on flight
simulation environment.
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WANTED!
Here are some messages from visitors of the site. They are
looking for a particular game or they have a problem. Maybe
you can help them? If so, please contact them.
By the way, if you are looking for a game and you still
can't find it, post a message in our message board:
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/msgboard
> "I want to get a game called Dave (NOT Dangerous Dave)
> where you must get all gems to enter next level. Each
> time you complete a level, in screen apperars "Only X
> more to go!" , where X is the number of levels remaning
> Please if someone owns it, tell me how to get it. Thanx"
http://pub14.ezboard.com/fdosgamesarchivegamerequests.show
Message?topicID=46.topic
> "I'm looking for an old DOS game. All I remember about
> it is that you play as a girl and when you press the
> spacebar you turn into a wolf. It was an adventure/action
> type of game. You could use the wolf to attack ennemies,
> and change back to the girl to climb ropes & ladders,
> etc...
> Anyone knows the name of the game I'm talking about?"
http://pub14.ezboard.com/fdosgamesarchivegamerequests.show
Message?topicID=22.topic
> "Hi, I've found an old copy of Captain Comic II, but I
> have lost that dumb code sheet for the code you need to
> enter at the beggining. I was wondering if anybody
> happened to have one that I could see. Thanks."
http://pub14.ezboard.com/fdosgamesarchivegamerequests.show
Message?topicID=16.topic
> "Just wondering, are there any walkthroughs for the game
> Blackstar: Episode One? I can't seem to get into the
> locker room, there are always that guys walking by all
> the time.
> Tried everything (I think). Maybe I have to go to that
> tribal meeting first? Have gotten the message, and the
> Chief at the bar tells me all the time that "it's real
> soon now
> PS: anyone know where to get episode two?"
http://pub14.ezboard.com/fdosgamesarchivegamerequests.show
Message?topicID=6.topic
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THANKS
If you've any ideas for future content, we would like to
hear from you! Contact us at webmaster@dosgamesarchive.com
That's it for this issue of our newsletter. See you next
time and thanks for reading!
DOS Games Archive Team
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com
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DOS Games
