Microsoft Flight Simulator: 25 Years and Counting

We're finishing up work on our 23rd World Class Awards feature. I can't tell you the results quite yet--stay tuned--but I did come across a tidbit today that's worth sharing. I dug back in our archives to take a peek at the first World Class Awards story, which we published in September of 1983. It's not surprising that almost all of the products we gave awards to 23 years ago are long gone, but one software package on the list is still with us, and still popular.

That program? Microsoft Flight Simulator. Even in 1983, it was a favorite of long standing: It dates back to at least 1980, when it was an Apple II game developed by a gent named Bruce Artwick and sold by a company called SubLOGIC. (I say "at least" 1980 because some sources say that the program first appeared in January of 1979. This impressive Flight Simulator history site, run by Dutch fan Jos Grupping, says that the true date is 1980, and absent other evidence, I'll assume he's right.)

In 1982, the program became a Microsoft product--and it still is. And for the past 26 years, the game has taken full advantage of every incremental improvement in processing power and graphics. (Betcha that even the Air Force's most sophisticated and expensive flight simulation equipment of 1979 would look pitiful in comparison to today's Flight Simulator on a garden-variety PC of 2005.)

Here's Flight Simulator in the first form I remember it--as a 1980 Radio Shack TRS-80 game (image borrowed from the aforementioned history site):



And here's today's version:



Offhand, the only other major program I can think of that dates back that far and has existed in more or less the same form ever since (albeit with many, many upgrades) is WordPerfect. Anybody out there know of any products I'm forgetting?