How did you find Orbiter?

[mjanicki]

Like many others, I was looking for interesting new things to do with flight simulators and happened upon Orbiter. One of the best unexpected finds I've come across.

 

[Dark_Fox]

in my computer repair class a few years back, i needed something to test to see if the joystick i installed worked, dumb assignment, great program

 

[quijote]

Google, "Space Simulator"

 

[Deke]

Well, for me, I had be using flight simulators for years. Ever since MFS 2000. Finally in March of 2006, after years of being a space enthusiast, it FINALLY hit me, what if there was a space sim? So I typed in "space simulator" in Yahoo, and Orbiter popped up down the list.

Long story short, two years ago this past March my life has never been the same. Such a great program.

 

[Bullethead]

I've been doing flightsims since before there were PCs. I recall playing the original Flight Simulator on an Apple II arount 1980. The program was on a casette tape that took about 20 minutes to load, the world was a wireframe of about 5x5 squares with a jagged line along 1 edge for mountains, and all the planes were dots. I stuck with flightsims ever since, got into Air Warrior (the first real MMPO) in 1994, then Aces High.

I first heard of Orbiter about 5 or 6 years ago, and while I was really interested in it, it was out of my reach. I didn't have broadband until very recently. By then, I'd forgotten about it. If I hadn't been sitting around bored with a broken foot the last couple months, I'd never have stumbled onto it again. But I did, and now I have broadband, so now I'm into it .

 

[Dr Pepper]

I found it by chance, really. I was scrolling through a MS-Flight Simulator forum when I saw a thread about FSX's Space Shuttle add-on. I clicked it, read through it, and came to one post with a picture of Orbitersim's Space Shuttle Atlantis in orbit. I asked the person (who's name I cannot remember) to see what game it was from, and he told me about Orbiter and sent me the website link. I downloaded the 2005 version and tried out the Space Shuttle. I tried unsucessfully for twenty minutes trying to figure out how to leave the pad. It didn't matter, though; I was hooked. From that point on, my fasination with space flight (and with Orbiter) grew rapidly.

 

[paintgun]

Caught the link to it in a Yahoo Flightsim group I belong to. Had Microsoft Space Simulator many, many moons ago, but it doesn't even come close to Orbiter.

 

[Andy44]

I've been doing flightsims since before there were PCs.

My first flight sim was Flight Simulator for the Timex/Sinclair 1000 which I got for Christmas in 1982. No sound, monochrome, no joystick, also loaded on a cassette tape. I still have both the computer and the software cassette, the computer still works fine but I haven't tried to use the cassette in a long time. I doubt it hasn't deteriorated.

 

[James.Denholm]

One of my friends was into Rigs Of Rods a while back (maybe nine months, a year at most) and gave it to me (though I didn't really want it), I was looking through it's wiki and found a link to Orbiter, the rest was just following links!

What a fluke I found it...

EDIT: Just saw Andy's post. I'd laugh if the cassette still works...

 

[Matt]

I was just looking through the flight simulators page on wikipedia about a year ago and saw "Orbiter, a freeware space flight simulator " and thought, that looks great and downloaded it.

 

[csmate86]

I found Orbiter in our school library. Someone installed it to one of the PCs. Today it`s one of my favourite activities on my PC.

 

[mbartley]

In a discussion on http://slashdot.org/ several years ago someone mentioned Orbiter and posted a link to Martin's Orbiter web page.

A quick search http://www.google.com/search?query=Orbiter+simulator&as_sitesearch=slashdot.org
shows it's been mentioned a bunch of times actually. I can't remember which article's discussions I'm remembering.

 

[Lunar Pilot]

Orbiter

I don't think any of you found Orbiter like this. I found it while looking up 3-d star maps on Wikipedia and Google, then I found Orbiter. One of the best programs I've ever found.

(It would be better with more than our solar system, but, hey, you can't have everything)

 

[Cornflake]

I found it by chance, really.

Same here. I stumbled upon Orbiter on a thread of Facepunch Studios (Although the thread doesn't seem to exist any more). It was actually a thread in the gaming section made just for Orbiter 2006 and everyone was posting their thoughts on it, and pictures. I normally don't browse the off topic forums, but this day I did. So I downloaded Orbiter and gave it a quick go just for laughs . My first picture I posted was re-entering the atmosphere in the Shuttle - backwards, with the bay doors open. That was before I even knew how to establish orbit Turns out it is now one of my favorite games, and I went from not knowing how to establish orbit to docking with the ISS, landing on the Moon and Mars.

In case you're wondering, the Facepunch website is basically the main community forum for Garry's Mod - A building / sandbox mod for HL2. I played it for quite some time with a sweet "Spacebuild" mod. I really got into it, but the creator and admins of the forums are complete arseholes and continued updating the mod nonstop and breaking more things than they fixed every time. So eventually I told Garry off and got myself banned. I don't really think I'll go to playing the mod again.

At least something good - Orbiter - came out of it

 

[pilotpercy]

i was looking for a free chess game to download!, typed it in to google and orbiter sim poped up suprisingly, ive always been crazy about anything to do with space so i gave it a go, life hasnt been the same since

 

[Chipstone306]

I was trying to find a free flight simulator with the shuttle and found orbiter thru google.

 

[n0mad23]

I've been doing flightsims since before there were PCs. I recall playing the original Flight Simulator on an Apple II arount 1980. The program was on a casette tape that took about 20 minutes to load, the world was a wireframe of about 5x5 squares with a jagged line along 1 edge for mountains, and all the planes were dots.

My dad had a Franklin (yup, a generic Apple/Mac knockoff) in 1980, and I got a hacked cassette tape of this same program. Twenty minutes to load, and a total mind blower that such a program was even possible.

I remember thinking how cool it was, and if Flight Simulator was possible, maybe one day someone would make a Space Simulator.

I don't think if someone had shown me a copy of Orbiter 2006 in 1980 and told me this is what's coming I would have believed it. The technology then really didn't forecast what was going to be possible.

 

[rodion_herrera]

I think it was "Home of the Underdogs" a (semi-legal) "abandonware" site, this was sometime in 2002 I think. Funny that it was categorized as such, as "abandonware" I mean lol

-RODION

 

[to be]

I was looking at dan's fspassengers forums, and found a link to his orbiter forums. I looked into it, and here I am.

 

[Piper]

I was looking for a really old Mac game called "Orion," typed in space simulator and found Orbiter.