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Intersim studios is no Dead!!

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virtuali:

--- Quote from: CX 747-400 on October 13, 2010, 10:56:59 pm ---I have been heavy into FS since 1983, and I never even heard of you until C9
--- End quote ---

Ok, then these are for you:

http://www.virtualisoftware.com/oldstuff/ev_simulatori1.jpg
http://www.virtualisoftware.com/oldstuff/ev_simulatori2.jpg
http://www.virtualisoftware.com/oldstuff/ev_simulatori3.jpg

Now the explanation:

The year was 1984, and I was in high school back then, and also used to do part-time work for a company that sold software at the newstands (which was very hot in Italy back then) for the Commodore home computers. We did our own software, but the market back then was dominated by pirated copies of commercial products, sold in the open, just with changed names. We had funny italian names for games from Epyx, Electronic Arts, Microprose, etc. Copyright law in Italy didn't cover software until 1992 so, nobody could really do much against it.

The screenshots shows part of a compilation of Flight Sim software, which was released by this company I used to work with. It was distributed on 2 Cassette Tapes, and included stuff like Microprose "Solo Flight", and even SubLogic FS 2.0, all for the Commodore 64. This was FS2.0.

The issue was, FS 2.0 was a disk-only product but, in 1984, not many users could afford a floppy drive for the C64 so, my bosses asked me to do something about it so, with lots of hackery, I've put FS2.0 ON A TAPE and, while I was at it, I also translated in Italian! See the screenshots...( the name "Aldo Campanozzi" you see on the first screen, it's only the graphic designer that did the starting splash screen, I haven't put my name on it...)

I don't think SubLogic ever knew that FS2.0 on the Commodore had a special italian version, which was both illegally sold (well, in Italy, it wasn't technically illegal in 1984) and ran on a Tape, rather than floppies...

This "started" my career in Flight sim developement somehow...I'm not too proud of it, since it was basically an hacking but hey, I was only 17...

sjt375:
that's awesome virtuali!

Silverbird:

--- Quote from: sjt375 on October 13, 2010, 11:49:43 pm ---that's awesome virtuali!

--- End quote ---

That's really cool Umberto its always fun learning more about people, who make some of the best add-ons on the market.

newmanix:
Wow!! I really like the direction this topic is going. Umberto, holy crap! I hope this doesn't make you feel bad but you have been at this sence I was 5 years old. I will be 29 on Oct 31st.  :o I had no idea how much passion you had in home simulation development. You are likely to be the longest time developer in the field. If Microsoft is not consulting you on their future product, they should!!! It really is great to see how far simulation has come over the years. This would make a cool History channel episode: "The History of Flight Simulation." You'd be all over it! ;)

http://fshistory.simflight.com/

CX 747-400:
That takes me back to the early days. I was living in Hong Kong at the time, and I had a black market computer called a pineapple (Want to be apple I think), I had blackmarket copies of every game you can image. We I moved back to the USA, I got my first Commodore 64 w/ the floppy drive. Flight Sim in color was a huge jump for the time.

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