__NOTOC__ ''Airfight'' is an early

3D graphics 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for the ...

-based multi-user

flight simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...

, created on the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

(UIUC)

Control Data Corporation Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer firm. CDC was one of the nine major United States computer companies through most of the 1960s; the others were IBM, Burroughs Corporation, DEC, NCR, General Electric, Honeywel ...

(CDC)

PLATO system Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

in the early 1970s. The software was the first ever 3D flight simulator and the first

multi-player A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system ( couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

flight simulator. The first version was developed by Brand Fortner with Kevin Gorey in the summer of 1974. After its release, it became the most popular game on PLATO until ''

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

'' became more popular. This software probably inspired the UIUC student

Bruce Artwick Bruce Arthur Artwick (born January 1, 1953) is an American software engineer. He is the creator of the first consumer flight simulator software. He founded Sublogic after graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1977, ...

to start the company

Sublogic Sublogic Corporation (stylized as subLOGIC) is an American software development company. It was formed in 1977 by Bruce Artwick, and incorporated in 1978 by Artwick's partner Stu Moment as Sublogic Communications Corporation. Sublogic is best kno ...

, which was acquired and later became

Microsoft Flight Simulator ''Microsoft Flight Simulator'' is a series of amateur flight simulator programs for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and earlier for MS-DOS and Classic Mac OS. It was an early product in the Microsoft application portfolio and differed sig ...

References

External links

* * {{cite web, url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwFLEGDA2hM , title=The history of Airfight, one of the first multiplayer flight combat simulation games , work=The Life & Times of Video Games , publisher=

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

, date=4 May 2018 1974 video games 3D graphics software Multiplayer online games Combat flight simulators PLATO (computer system) games Video games developed in the United States

See also

References

Further reading

External links