<
https://airandspace.si.edu/air-and-space-quarterly/spring-2023/pilot-program>
"
Forty years ago, a software engineer with a passion for aviation taught
desktop computers how to fly.
Bruce Artwick can’t remember exactly where or when he had the epiphany that
launched the home flight-simulator industry. But he vividly recalls what
happened during an otherwise forgettable lunchtime presentation and how it
galvanized him to take action.
It was the summer of 1978, and the digital revolution was gathering momentum.
The previous year had seen the debut of the so-called trinity of turn-key
microcomputers—the Apple II, Radio Shack TRS-80, and Commodore PET 2001. But
these were still early days. Computer stores were as rare as unicorns, and if a
bookstore had a computer section, it consisted of a single shelf sparsely
populated with esoteric how-to manuals.
Despite the arrival of the trinity, off-the-shelf computers were the exception.
Most computers were homebuilt rigs assembled from components sold by various
startups—a chassis here, a motherboard there. A handful of startups offered
third-party software, but it tended to be buggy and not very useful. “The field
was so new,” says Artwick. “And there was so much opportunity.”
Then 25 years old, Artwick was uniquely positioned to profit from the coming
wave. He’d studied both electrical engineering and computer science at the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and he was both a hardware virtuoso
and a software savant. For his master’s thesis, Artwick wrote a pioneering
program that could be used to generate three-dimensional graphics for a
hypothetical flight simulator. He parlayed this expertise into an engineering
gig at Hughes Aircraft. Shortly after moving to southern California, he and a
friend from college, Stu Moment, formed a company to sell retail versions of
his 3D graphics software. While Artwick worked full-time at Hughes, Moment and
his wife copied programs on cassettes in their trailer home in Champaign."
Via Steven Pam.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
