The HabForum

What were the shuttle sims like when camp started? What kind of graphics did they use?

I've played some early consumer sims (i.e. Virgin Games Shuttle), and I've done modern sims (Orbiter). I am amazed at what costed money a long time ago is now surpassed by free software. Were the camp sims like virgin shuttle?

I can only speak abut sims of the early 90s but i can say just in that time the space camp sims have come a very long way. When i went to camp in 1991 they used a cockput called Columbia it remained part of camp till ate 2002 when it was taken apart intrepid had essentialy replaced it before then anyway. At the time and even in 93 and 98 you went through the motions of the mission, the checklist, script etc and their were anomolies given by the counselor but noone landed the shuttle not really atleast. Everything on the screen was a video and in 1991 a very poor quality one by todays standards. Columbia was very simple a key pad and a few swtiches it was also one of the earliest sims though it was upgraded over the years. I believe they did a major overhall in 1992 though i never got to see the inside of her again. I have heard the Academy level 2 sims now used for ASA could be controled by campers but by 98 it was no longer the case either. Now by comparison the stuff you do in the sim acyualy affects what happens on screen it is a vast improvement over the sims when i was there as a youth. I wont even go into how much better the AC sim graphics are now but they are mindblowing ompared to 96.

I have heard the original sims used in 82 and early on were extremely primitive but have no first hand knowledge.

The original Endeavour sim graphics were much like the Virgin Shuttle sim, but slightly better in my opinion. Both the game and the Space Camp simulator debuted in 1992. In those days, the training center floor was visible to the public, and you could watch live screens from Endeavour missions on televisions that hung by the walkway next to the cafeteria. Endeavour had the most advanced graphics at the time of my last official trip to Camp in 1994.

I had the privilege of flying Discovery in 1992, one of the earliest sims at Camp. The graphics were mostly pre-shot video sequences, and like Boomerang said, the quality even then wasn't that great. Some sequences were 3D rendered, such as space station docking, but were non-interactive.

Having not seen the inside of a Space Camp sim since '94, I can't tell you about the upgrades, but I'm sure they're light years ahead of what we had back in the day!

I've always wanted to build a hardware sim like at Space Camp. I've often thought of starting a collaborative project. If you donate money to it for us to build it, you'd get time to use it as an incentive.

If only we all lived in the same general area.

DanM wrote:If only we all lived in the same general area.

Indeed. I've often attempted to think of other ways to solicit money other than my own for this very expensive project. The thought has also occured to me that I could accept donations for a team of builders as loans; we could rent out time to people wanting to use our sim, and pay back our loaners that way.

Back in these days:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5 ... =656782959
There was one motion based cockpit, a spacelab, space station and mission control. A combinatrion of video and very crude computer graphics with no real interactivity was used for out the window views and mission control. The two EVA tasks were building a tetrahedron (thouoght at the time to be a space station precursor) and fixing the Hubble, using 5DFs and an MMU on the arm.

Hey Rich, the link didn't work for me

It didn't work for me either.

It's probably a permissions problem. Let me take a look. I'm also posting some photos from the first regular adult Space Camp the year before.