In the beginning

My first contact with computers was - I think - when I was in 5th or 6th grade ('85 or '86). I had no idea back then what was ahead of me. I just had a heck of a time playing the simplest but fun platform, shoot 'em ups, and sports games.

It was after only a year or two that I bought my first flight sim; Microprose's Project Stealth Fighter for my computer (which like most home computers at that time was a Commodore C64). The graphics were pathetic by today's standards. 320x200 pixels, 16 colours, transparent polygons, dot-shaped aircraft, and pyramid mountains. But the atmosphere of the game was just as involving as it is today. I was living the life of a NATO pilot protecting the free world against evil, soaring high above the battlefields of Scandinavia, seemingly untouchable.

To cut the story short, I later went on to buying an Atari 1040 STE and joined sides in the Atari vs Commodore battle, and later the Atari/Commodore vs PC battle. As history tells this battle was eventually won by The Dark Side :) and I capitulated and got my first 90 MHz Pentium personal computer. When I'm writing this, I am the proud owner of a 400 MHz PII, with 128 megs of RAM and somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 GB of hard disk space. Sometimes the speed of the electronics development can be scary...

A small step for mankind

I think my first contact with simulator cockpits for home use was when a friend showed me the Thrustmaster F-16 cockpit. This is long gone by now. At that time I didn't do much more than saying "wow!" and went on with my life, but maybe the idea of doing something like it has been sitting in the back of my head since then.

Around 1997, I for some strange reason stumbled across a site on the net describing a homebuilt cockpit. I can't remember where it was, but this is what finally made me go ahead and try it myself. I went through a intensive period of constructing and fact-gathering during that winter, but at the middle of building I brought it inside the house to try it and make sure that everything was in the right place and that it was comfortable. BIG MISTAKE! :) First rule of 'pit building; NEVER EVER bring a half-done 'pit inside! You will evaluate it and then just go ahead and use it. It will never get finished. I am not the first one doing this and will probably not be the last...

Today (Spring of 2000) I have again taken the cockpit apart and started redesigning it. I have found a lot of inspiration and many helpful friends in the SimPits mailing list, and this is what made me start over. Thank you guys!