Classic Games Emulated: The Microsoft Flight Simulator Versions 1 and 2 for the IBM PC

June 03, 2021

The Love of Flying Has Been Their Since Day 1.

Microsoft Flight Simulator Version 1 for the IBM PC

Their is this famous saying: If men were meant to fly, then they would have been born with wings. The Wright Brothers never gotten that memo. Chuck Yeager never gotten that memo either, but he did get another one: Break sound itself and be awesome at it! The pilots of the sky have always filled out imaginations. Going to a high elevation to where not many have gone before. Many will never get the opportunity to fly a plane. Our imaginations would run wild until programmers started to build their own worlds for us to fly around in. This was a massive challenge given how limited computer hardware was in the late 70's/early 80's. Machines like the Apple II and Radio Shack TRS-80 home computer had, by modern standards, extremely limited capabilities. The programmers on these platforms did build those worlds though.

One thing has to be established though: This blog series is not intended to be a complete history of the Microsoft Flight Simulator. The intention of these flight simulators articles is to demonstrate the ability of emulators/virtual machines to run this old software the way that they were meant to run. Or fly in this case! (Pun intended)

SubLOGIC Flight Simulator for the Radio Shack TRS-80 Home Computer.

subLOGIC Flight Simulator for the Apple II

Flight Simulator 1 for the IBM PC

As primitive as these virtual worlds were, they opened up a world of possibilities. A programmer named Bruce Artwick originally created the Flight Simulator in the late 70's. He helped form a company called subLOGIC that marketed his creation for all to enjoy. The Flight Simulator was ported to many of the popular micros at that time. When it was apparent that the IBM PC was going to be the next big thing, it was only a matter of time before that platform would get a port as well. subLOGIC had various commitments though, and they didn't fully understand IBM's new platform. As a result, they licensed their product to Microsoft to develop. Already experts of the platform that IBM created, they started to turn out a product that would take full advantage of the PC hardware. Using the "bare metal" of the PC hardware, they inked out every ounce of performance that the machine could muster. Microsoft Flight Simulator Version 1 was released on November 1982. Because of how this game used very specific features of the PC; this title, along with the Lotus 123 spreadsheet, were used as stress test to see how compatible the clones were to the IBM PC. If that clone could run this game as well as Lotus 123, then that compatible could run pretty much any software that the IBM PC could run. By modern standards, their wasn't much offered by this initial version.

The Flight Simulator did support color graphics, but using a composite monitor. It ran in black-and-white, high-res CGA mode (640 by 200) using a dedicated RGB monitor. A demo mode was offered in the game to show the plane flying over the scenery. Their was a day and night mode, as well as a flight coordination system. As mentioned in the Wikipedia article, their was a crop-duster and dogfight mode as well. The dog-fighting was done by in a Sopwith Camel, a World War 1 biplane that was widely used by the RAF during that conflict. The game starts off with the plane parked at Chicago's Meigs Field, a single runway airport that's adjacent to Lake Michigan. The performance, while acceptable to a early 80's gamer, would leave a lot to be desired now. Anything from that time period hasn't aged well. However, older games cannot be directly compared to modern games either because it was just simply a different time, and a direct comparison wouldn't be possible. Hardware was different. Games were different. Expectations were different. However, this was the start for a franchise that I hold dear too. I never tried the first couple versions of the game until much later, when I wanted to familiarize myself with the history of the Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The game runs under PCEM without issue. PCEM does not emulate a composite monitor though, only the higher-quality RGB monitor. As a result, the first incarnation of the FS will run in black-and-white, as that version doesn't support color on RGB (Microsoft supported color on the RGB signal for Version 2). This game runs without issue though. For the screenshots, I ran the game in demo mode. PCEM was configured to emulate the original IBM PC using the Intel 8088 running at 4.77MHz. This first version of the Flight Simulator came as a boot-able floppy that executed the game immediately after boot-up, like most games during this time.

Flight Simulator 2

Released on 1984, the next incarnation of the game wasn't really that different though. Graphics was improved, as color was now supported in CGA using the higher-quality RGB monitor. The scenery was slightly more enhanced as well to take advantage of color. FS Version 2 also had scenery covering the whole U.S. However, the airport scenery was restricted to the same airports that were in the first game. Scenery disk were provided which expanded the flying range to Western Europe, Japan and Hawaii. Like the previous game, this version was widely used in clone compatibility testing. It also shipped as a boot-able floppy disk which directly started the game after boot-up and loading. This title was very well received during its time, and Microsoft would continually update the game over it's existence. This series would just get better, along with the hardware that it's running on.

This game has no issues running under PCEM either. RGB color mode is supported using CGA graphics. The performance emulated is what would have been expected of a computer during that time period, and the emulation; while not 100% accurate, it close enough from a casual observer. I would still admit though that the early incarnations of the game are more of an intellectual curiosity than a "must play" title. These early games were slaves to the hardware that they ran on. A demonstration of the evolution of the series, which will get a lot more amazing with the passage of time.