old timers

[Wildin]

Happy to be here, happy to be alive. WB 90's till 2005. Enjoying VR in AH now at 79.

[Icer]

Anybody around here play Fighter Ace?  I flew with the FC Squadron (The Flying Circus) from the late '90's until they killed it in 2009 or so, and left us high and dry.  I FC_Graywolf back then and flew with and against some of the best guys I've known in gaming.  Anybody that old in here?

Was thinking of the first multiplayer flight sim I played, was in DOS, had to Telnet in via command line from Compuserve on a 2400 baud modem. The planes took off from a base up on a flat Mesa that was surrounded by canyons, which is where a lot of the fighting occurred. I "remember" it as "Confirmed Kill" but as it was well over ~30 years ago, not sure (and from searches CK was a box game). Anyone remember this game?

[Eagler]

Attack sub 688 was the 1st online game I tried with a coworker over our dial up modems..

Fighter ace was the first fight sim

Thanks to affordable high speed (cable tv) internet that got us off modems and has enabled the web to be what it has become..for better or worse

Eagler

[Max]

Was thinking of the first multiplayer flight sim I played, was in DOS, had to Telnet in via command line from Compuserve on a 2400 baud modem. The planes took off from a base up on a flat Mesa that was surrounded by canyons, which is where a lot of the fighting occurred. I "remember" it as "Confirmed Kill" but as it was well over ~30 years ago, not sure (and from searches CK was a box game). Anyone remember this game?

I believe Hitech wrote the code for Confirmed Kill, no?

[Icer]

I believe Hitech wrote the code for Confirmed Kill, no?

I thought it was related, but my memory of what/when/where back then is fuzzy. I was also quite active in Warbirds when it first came out, was in the "Dweebs of Death" squad and our C\O was one of the developers of Roger Wilco, the first VOIP comms program.. Days of Gunship, IAF, EF2000, Falcon 3, and (to wife #2s dismay) I bought anything I could get my hands on.. . The pinnacle of my AH days was around the time of the (IIRC) 2nd Con in Texas, drinking beers with Skuzzy and the guys, and being dragged from thh bar to take a position with my bestie Slapshot in the 2 vs. 2 ladder, using someone's HOTAS with (to me) a reversed throttle. We ended up going for the championship when he convinced me to trade my A6M for a Spit, and we lost..

[Dadtallica]

Was thinking of the first multiplayer flight sim I played, was in DOS, had to Telnet in via command line from Compuserve on a 2400 baud modem. The planes took off from a base up on a flat Mesa that was surrounded by canyons, which is where a lot of the fighting occurred. I "remember" it as "Confirmed Kill" but as it was well over ~30 years ago, not sure (and from searches CK was a box game). Anyone remember this game?

Almost sounds like Chuck Yeagers sim lol. I crashed into a lot of orange triangle mountains and flat mesas.

[xanax]

I remember this dude, Troy, lived directly across from me in the dorms at ISU (Idaho State) in 1990. I walked past his open door one day and saw him playing a flight sim. It was amazing-especially after he told me the other planes were actual humans from around the world! He let me try it out and we took turns. He had been at it a couple more days than me so he was a pro. I remember he had a Genie account and we jumped through a bunch of computer nerd fires to get into the game each time. The game was Air Warrior. Everyone always says it was $6 an hour to play back then but I distinctly remember him telling me it was $5 as I ended up splitting the bill for a couple of months during the Spring semester of that year. I remember my stomach sinking as I wrote him a check for $80 at one point. That really hurt back then as I was making $4.60/hr working in the biology lab 20 hours a week taking care of cadavers and cleaning test tubes.
I wish I could remember our callsign and nick. I know it started with a 4 and our nick had something to do with cowboys. We were awful. We did get some kills sometimes and I remember a player called Eyeballs and I remember that Fencer guy too, I think. There was a CapnTrips in there too if I recall correctly.
Troy left for grad school in Utah I think and I saw nothing of AW until 1994 I think on Earthspring (?) and later AOL. I remember it was pay to play again but cheaper-maybe $2 or $3 an hour. I always used prescription drug names as ID's- so Xanax, Paxil, NSAID and a few others as I skipped between services that hosted AW. I think it was '96 when AOL and Gamestorm went "all you can eat" for AW and I was in like Flynn! Countless hours winging with BD, Ptero, Mutant, ASF (Altitude Super Freak) and even Infidel (Nobaddy) was around to save my bellybutton a bunch. Eventually, BD and Ptero took me aside in the radio room and offered me a spot in The Damned. Hell Yes, I took it! Was very proud to be included with them.
 I played Warbirds quite a bit starting in 98, I think, and it was fun too. I still preferred AW but yup, still fun over there.
In 1999, I went to the AW Con in SF and had a blast meeting fellow nerds....great times.
In 1999, Dale put me on the alpha testing group and I had a blast testing AH. Luckily, nobody listened to my observations on the flight model and here we are today. Marriage and mountain bike riding and racing got in the way of my PC gaming soon after and now here I am. Broken from bike riding and maybe looking at getting back into pc planes. It'd be great to recapture some of that thrill of "I go diving down."

[hazmatt]

I remember this dude, Troy, lived directly across from me in the dorms at ISU (Idaho State) in 1990. I walked past his open door one day and saw him playing a flight sim. It was amazing-especially after he told me the other planes were actual humans from around the world! He let me try it out and we took turns. He had been at it a couple more days than me so he was a pro. I remember he had a Genie account and we jumped through a bunch of computer nerd fires to get into the game each time. The game was Air Warrior. Everyone always says it was $6 an hour to play back then but I distinctly remember him telling me it was $5 as I ended up splitting the bill for a couple of months during the Spring semester of that year. I remember my stomach sinking as I wrote him a check for $80 at one point. That really hurt back then as I was making $4.60/hr working in the biology lab 20 hours a week taking care of cadavers and cleaning test tubes.
I wish I could remember our callsign and nick. I know it started with a 4 and our nick had something to do with cowboys. We were awful. We did get some kills sometimes and I remember a player called Eyeballs and I remember that Fencer guy too, I think. There was a CapnTrips in there too if I recall correctly.
Troy left for grad school in Utah I think and I saw nothing of AW until 1994 I think on Earthspring (?) and later AOL. I remember it was pay to play again but cheaper-maybe $2 or $3 an hour. I always used prescription drug names as ID's- so Xanax, Paxil, NSAID and a few others as I skipped between services that hosted AW. I think it was '96 when AOL and Gamestorm went "all you can eat" for AW and I was in like Flynn! Countless hours winging with BD, Ptero, Mutant, ASF (Altitude Super Freak) and even Infidel (Nobaddy) was around to save my bellybutton a bunch. Eventually, BD and Ptero took me aside in the radio room and offered me a spot in The Damned. Hell Yes, I took it! Was very proud to be included with them.
 I played Warbirds quite a bit starting in 98, I think, and it was fun too. I still preferred AW but yup, still fun over there.
In 1999, I went to the AW Con in SF and had a blast meeting fellow nerds....great times.
In 1999, Dale put me on the alpha testing group and I had a blast testing AH. Luckily, nobody listened to my observations on the flight model and here we are today. Marriage and mountain bike riding and racing got in the way of my PC gaming soon after and now here I am. Broken from bike riding and maybe looking at getting back into pc planes. It'd be great to recapture some of that thrill of "I go diving down."

Nice walk down memory lane. Thanks for sharing.
I started playing on an Amiga 500 around the same time. I recently found my AW dos and GEnie manuals. I remember 300 a month bills for the hourly play. It was more then my rent at the time! I upgraded to a 486/25 cause the Amiga wasn't giving me enough frame rates. I remember 4 number "tail numbers" at the time, not call signs.

Something interesting is that there's another thread titled Airwarrior that is currently showing that I first posted here in 1999. Almost 25 years ago now. Wow!

[Dadtallica]

Great story Xanax!

[xanax]

Nice walk down memory lane. Thanks for sharing.
I started playing on an Amiga 500 around the same time. I recently found my AW dos and GEnie manuals. I remember 300 a month bills for the hourly play. It was more then my rent at the time! I upgraded to a 486/25 cause the Amiga wasn't giving me enough frame rates. I remember 4 number "tail numbers" at the time, not call signs.

Something interesting is that there's another thread titled Airwarrior that is currently showing that I first posted here in 1999. Almost 25 years ago now. Wow!

That's right, tail numbers. I remember seeing handles in the standings and whatnot in GEnie pages or bulletins...whatever they were. I do remember being amazed you could be a gunner on a bomber. An actual dude would be flying the plane and other dudes would be manning the guns. We could type to each other as well. You'd type a command to hop on board and you were in.

Hey, Troy! If you are out there and seeing this, drop me a pm. We lived on first floor, Nichols Hall if that helps. I was the dude who'd bring full-strength beer from Nevada.
I gotta say my pathophysiology paper could have been much better if it wasn't for that damn game.

[xanax]

That's right, tail numbers. I remember seeing handles in the standings and whatnot in GEnie pages or bulletins...whatever they were. I do remember being amazed you could be a gunner on a bomber. An actual dude would be flying the plane and other dudes would be manning the guns. We could type to each other as well. You'd type a command to hop on board and you were in.

Hey, Troy! If you are out there and seeing this, drop me a pm. We lived on first floor, Nichols Hall if that helps. I was the dude who'd bring full-strength beer from Nevada.
I gotta say my pathophysiology paper could have been much better if it wasn't for that damn game.

Thanks! I'm sure my memories are full of holes. I'm hoping Troy still plays and will see this post. After waking up from fainting, sends me a PM.

[hazmatt]

I remember dueling c47s with manned door gunners...

[Brooke]

I remember

Nice!  Those were the days, eh?  Thanks for posting. 

Also, nice reference to Scav's "I go diving down". 

If you want something of the golden days, come fly with us in the next Scenario in March.  We still run Scenarios like we did with DoK starting in the early 1990's in Air Warrior.

This one is going to be an 8th AF campaign themed on (and running during) the "Masters of the Air" TV series.

this dude, Troy, lived directly across from me in the dorms at ISU (Idaho State) in 1990. I walked past his open door one day and saw him playing a flight sim. It was amazing-especially after he told me the other planes were actual humans from around the world! He let me try it out and we took turns. He had been at it a couple more days than me so he was a pro. I remember he had a Genie account and we jumped through a bunch of computer nerd fires to get into the game each time. The game was Air Warrior. Everyone always says it was $6 an hour to play back then but I distinctly remember him telling me it was $5 as I ended up splitting the bill for a couple of months during the Spring semester of that year. I remember my stomach sinking as I wrote him a check for $80 at one point. That really hurt back then as I was making $4.60/hr working in the biology lab 20 hours a week taking care of cadavers and cleaning test tubes.
I wish I could remember our callsign and nick. I know it started with a 4 and our nick had something to do with cowboys. We were awful. We did get some kills sometimes and I remember a player called Eyeballs and I remember that Fencer guy too, I think. There was a CapnTrips in there too if I recall correctly.
Troy left for grad school in Utah I think and I saw nothing of AW until 1994 I think on Earthspring (?) and later AOL. I remember it was pay to play again but cheaper-maybe $2 or $3 an hour. I always used prescription drug names as ID's- so Xanax, Paxil, NSAID and a few others as I skipped between services that hosted AW. I think it was '96 when AOL and Gamestorm went "all you can eat" for AW and I was in like Flynn! Countless hours winging with BD, Ptero, Mutant, ASF (Altitude Super Freak) and even Infidel (Nobaddy) was around to save my bellybutton a bunch. Eventually, BD and Ptero took me aside in the radio room and offered me a spot in The Damned. Hell Yes, I took it! Was very proud to be included with them.
 I played Warbirds quite a bit starting in 98, I think, and it was fun too. I still preferred AW but yup, still fun over there.
In 1999, I went to the AW Con in SF and had a blast meeting fellow nerds....great times.
In 1999, Dale put me on the alpha testing group and I had a blast testing AH. Luckily, nobody listened to my observations on the flight model and here we are today. Marriage and mountain bike riding and racing got in the way of my PC gaming soon after and now here I am. Broken from bike riding and maybe looking at getting back into pc planes. It'd be great to recapture some of that thrill of "I go diving down."
[/quote]

[xanax]

Nice!  Those were the days, eh?  Thanks for posting. 

Also, nice reference to Scav's "I go diving down". 

If you want something of the golden days, come fly with us in the next Scenario in March.  We still run Scenarios like we did with DoK starting in the early 1990's in Air Warrior.

This one is going to be an 8th AF campaign themed on (and running during) the "Masters of the Air" TV series.

Thanks, Brooke! Yet another name from the glorious AW past. I printed your AW guide with a dot matrix printer back in the day. I may even have that, The Tao of DoK and Scav's musings stowed somewhere in the attic.

I loved scenarios and I will certainly try to be in the one scheduled in March at some capacity as I found my Logitech stick in box just tonight after visiting here.
I actually flourished in scenarios, if I recall correctly. I think it was "The day the Betty's died" scenario where I winged with Homer of AOL board admin fame. We ended up with the scalps of many an AW luminary that night as we brought down DD, GE, the aforementioned eb, and maybe 4 others in a wild and gnarly fight on the deck near Rabaul? I distinctly remember exploding GE's zeke with a minuscule burst as he slid onto Homer's 6. It was absolute bedlam after that as I simply followed Homer and slayed anyone who tried to line him up. at the end, it was just him and I flying out of that bloodbath. Glorious.
I remember DoK came over here early on and was starting to get his juju back there for a while in 2000-2001-ish. He must have went back to Grand Prix Legends or WB after that.

Yeah, I'll be there, the juices are flowing. I'll need some better readers and a coaster for my coffee mug situated near my joystick.

[Brooke]

Wow, yeah, your stories make me smile, Xanax! 

DoK was here long ago.  He did the Rangoon '42 scenario in 2004.  But I haven't seen him around since those days.

If folks had told me back in the early 1990's that something like Air Warrior would be available, but with far better graphics, better flight modelling, over 100 aircraft, all the historical terrains, and VR (if you want it), for $25/month for unlimited flying any time of day -- and yet that a world of gamers would be apathetic about that rather than storming in to play it all day -- I wouldn't have believed it.