Flight Simulator ZX81

[starsky2112]

Lmao, I know, Can you remember the what keyboard letter to hit for the landing gear ?

[halo2pc]

"You landed with your gear up!" ... LOLOL

[pw3uk]

Landing: Not bad. A bit bouncy.

[rob1969in]

I played this a lot, at first I was really annoyed that the box made it look a lot better but once I got in to it I loved it although I was really rubbish at it, the ZX81 had some great little games though, one I remember playing loads was Spartans,a early rpg I spose you'd call it, it was great.

[Joeyboots80]

Everything had to start somewhere, even flight sims. I still have the original "Flight Simulator" for Apple II.

[RetroCorn]

The graphics on this game are so beautiful. <3

[RapidAssistant]

Flight sim always took 6 minutes to load from tape which seemed like an eternity.....

[FuzzyPicture]

i'm 17 and i think this is great. :D

[starsky2112]

Lol, Cheers for the comment Kingbraceblane, Go on, Show him pong for a laugh, or even a text based adventure

[kingbraceblane]

Ah the memories... This was my first home PC purchased at a drug store for $69.95 in 1982. Later I purchased the 16KB upgrade and this flight sim. I wrote programs like 3D mazes and such and later in 84 moved into the Commodore series of computers. I showed this to my son and he said, "Wow, that really sucks on so many levels." But he never had to play Pong!

[Joeyboots80]

@kingbraceblane My kid is the same. "What is this crap!" lol One day he will have a kid who's like "What is this Uncharted 3 crap?! The graphics suck! Can I go back to the Holo-Deck now?"

[VANHELSING433]

Put it this way, I'm a LOT better on FS than I was on this!!

[MiKikaIwaShizaru]

I remember this game, waited and waited for my cassette deck to load it, amazing what they could do with that old blocky display!

[stukaville]

I bought this game after getting the required 16 k ram pack to play it. I loved it so much and was convinced i could probablly fly a real 747 after using a 'simulator' LMAO

[1958cyclist]

I found it very hard and impossible with wind affects so I used to crash it deliberately

[JoeyTribiane]

I remember that this game for the TS1000 took like 6 minutes to load off of the cassette player.

[dconflict]

I remember here in Canada, this was the most expensive game you could buy out of the Consumers Distributing Catalog, and I got it for my birthday. I always crashed the plane maybe cuz I liked the graphics for it.

Timex-Sinclair's version of Frogger was the bomb. I would play that one till the 16k memory would jiggle out of place, and freeze the computer.

[MiKikaIwaShizaru]

@dconflict

Ha ha I remember that 16K ram box on the back, kept coming loose, I think I duct-taped it on!

Looking back, I actually bought the computer with only 1K and had to order the 16K memory!

Crazy! Amazing it ran at all with only 1K!

[Joshuaemo8]

where to downlaod?

[ssoubiran]

Génial, mes premiers pas dans un simulateur de vol.

[pjcnet]

I had a ZX81 with it's terrible user graphics, but I used to think it was brilliant in it's day. I actually had a ZX80 and this couldn't even process at the same time as displaying the screen, making games very difficult, they would flicker on /off, at least the ZX81 resolved this problem.

[maffner]

PSION was great!

[fabianlabian]

i rarely landed on this game. thanks for sticking up these old zx81 games, i used to love playing them. i used to play a submarine game, seawolf !!

got any footage of that one?

[starsky2112]

add me as a friend, and i'll pm you a link for it

[djad1200]

Thanks, great video, I never did manage to land in this game without crashing (or the ram pack crashing)! Remember spending whole evenings playing this.

[xxkil]

looking back what a load of shite but it had me riiveted for hours lol oh the memories ha ha

[joliteal1]

UNCREDIBLE, WITH JUST 16k

today 16k x 1000 = 16M

16M x 100 = 1,6 G

We do the same with 100.000 times memory

Micro speed 3,5 MHz, today 3,5 GHz, "just" 1000 times,

[RABBIDGamfan]

However, 16 megabytes of ram does have it's perks for flight simulators. It was certainly a lot less interesting when all you had to fly over was completely bare ground.

Then again, you could get some basic scenery and even buildings back in those days on computers without too much more ram.

[PaulMJohnson]

Amazing video. It's 28 years and 5 days since I got my ZX81 (Christmas Day 1981!) and I look back on it fondly.

Flight Simulator seemed amazing - actually it was, when you think the resources people waste these days, and all that was crammed in 16k.

Happy days with that computer. Learned the early joys of computer games, and the pleasure of programming!

[vntr2006]

Yep, got mine Xmas 1981...never looked back.

[MrModulator]

Enter Run to fligh again... lol.

This looks like the most boring game ever produced. The only thing that seems to happen is a straight line that sometimes is drawn more diagonally. Oh wait, there is a landing. Sort of. Looks like it anyway, some square pixels with a lot of space between them being drawn about 1 time/second... LOL!

[flute2345]

first game i spent enough time on for my parents to complain  ... amazing how crap it looks now

[Adventurestud]

I enjoyed this bitd. I was able to keep it up without fuel.

[jommoner]

Watching the altitude when you bank the plane - the flight model seems kind of basic, in fact, there probably is no flight model :).

Back in the day, this would have been bleeding-edge gaming, now people complain about FS9 because FSX looks a lot better (and others complain about the lame flight models in FSX and go and play X-Plane, which is certified for proper flight training (and is available for the PC at a 'normal' price) :)

[SmoothTouchDown]

An amazing program for the Sinclair ZX81. I played it for hours and hours.

[ingijensson]

:) I had that one ...oef! Never really could fly that thing, he he!

[Doowoo]

i love the GFX... i dont think my computer can handle this...... too many colors :O

[chichuf]

Flight simulator? Oh my God! hi res graphics! and full color ;) the best game of zx81

[TrimFlinders]

See this, kids. You don't know how good you've got it. Only, you don't have to use your imagination as much with the top releases of today and you moan when the gfx suck.

[rollerpro2]

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[NibblesBigNuts]

Oh happy days! Loved these games for the ZX81. It even got me into writing machine code using the simple graphics simblols, pokes and peeks :D

[rvanner]

Played this a bit - just like real flying, once you were up nothing much happened!

[ChromeRed]

Gee great memories.... long nights with my ZX81

[kmp008]

This was when I first found out what a beacon is. Great memories and good video!

[Vyggy]

great vid, thanks

[alistairgarroway]

at least i could land this one great vid thanks

[starsky2112]

LMAO Simmo, It had been that long since i played, i've forgotten all the keys for it

[Simmo188]

At the end there I was shouting at the screen "You left your landing gear up!!!!"

Great memories thanks :P

[MoneyPenny70]

Wow I spent a lot of time playing this game, one of my favourites at the time. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

[slorge]

I loved this game! I remember the joy of actually landing safely on the runway for the first time! I played on a TS1000. Both the TS1000 and ZX81 were great values and great learning tools!