SUBSIM: 20 years on the web & still no gold watch!

[Onkel Neal]

I love stories like that, good job!

Only a couple more days to go.

[Marcantilan]

Back in 1997...

I was still in Law School (4th year, one more to come) and playing rugby there. Living la vida loca, without a girlfriend or stable couple (in fact I´ve been in NY with friends in New Year´s eve 1997).
On the computer side, I think I have the Pentium 233MMX, playing a lot of Harpoon´97 on Win 95.
I can´t believe all it was twenty years ago, but loss of hair is reminding me every time that it is true.

Regards!

[Buddyboy100]

I, like a few others I have seen reply, was not alive in 97. Anyway I thought I would talk about the first two game consoles I ever owned.

The first was actually a Nintendo Gameboy Color I had bought from my cousin. Sadly there wasn't any sub games at the time(or at least any I knew about) but I sunk many, many hours into Pokemon.

The Second was a Sony Playstation 2. I don't remember owning any sub games on the PS2 either, but I do remember a game involving jet fighters. The most memorable game as well as my favorite PS2 game of all time was Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis.

Last I wanted to mention the first sub game I remember playing. Which was Silent Hunter 5. Before SH5 I hadn't really even known there was a genre of sub games and sims out there. Also without SH5 I never would have found the Subsim forums, so thanks SH5.

P.S. Congrats on 20 years Subsim

[Aktungbby]

Sapyhr!

[Krieg Francis]

1997: believe it or not, I was 4 years old and was attending kindergarden hahah

I'm so young i know :3

[APFSDS]

WOw 1997 i was in college in Houston Texas studying hard. happy birthday

[Aktungbby]

APFSDS!

[Aries]

I'd been in the US Navy for four years already. Had just completed my second deployment to the 'Persian Gulf' as we called it back then. I was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan and was having the time of my life . About the only gaming I did on the computer at the time was playing Doom 2 and Tie Fighter on a cruddy little notebook that I'd bought from a friend for $100...

Aries

[Navelintel]

For me, 1997 commenced inauspiciously when I suddenly found out that the supervisor I had for the past six years had been dismissed of her duties and rightly so. I always believed management was as much an art as it is a science. And in the case of my ex-supervisor, her skill set was so limited, especially when it came to dealing with people, it began to impact our ability to carrying out our agency’s mission. My next supervisor wasn’t much better which always lead me to believe in the adage that people do seem to rise to the level of their own incompetence!

I then needed something positive to focus my energy, to save my sanity while others in my office feuded, sniped and bucked one another for favorable positions elsewhere in the organization. It was absolute chaos! Part of my mental therapy was to sometimes escape after work to play my first ‘nautically’ themed simulation games, Broderbund’s ‘Wolfpack’ and ‘The Ancient Art of War at Sea’ as a diversion on my Tandy TX which ran on MS DOS, with slots for a 3.5 diskette and 5.25 floppy, 19.6 MB of available storage on the HD, and a ‘dot matrix’ printer with no internet. But I needed something much more physical and substantial. What I really needed a ‘major-league’ stress reliever. And qualifying for the Boston Marathon met all the requisites.

The year before in 1996, the Boston Marathon had just celebrated its 100th anniversary with one of the largest field of competitors ever assembled (36,748 starters;35,868 official finishers), which stood as the record in the history of the sport until 2004 (New York City: 37,257 starters; 36,544 finishers). And ever since I first learned of the Boston Marathon from my earliest days as a schoolboy running cross country and track, I always dreamed of participating in the running world’s version of ’Wimbledon’! The only catch was it is an invitational race and you need to qualify along with some of the best runners in the world (unless you have a sponsor and are running for a charity) for a spot on the starting line in Hopkinton, Massachusetts on Patriot’s Day, which is usually the third Monday in April that commemorates the ride of Paul Revere and William Dawes in 1775. The Boston Marathon was inspired by the revival of the 1896 Olympic event in Greece that was the fabled route from the plains of Marathon to Athens run by Philippides, who told of the Greeks victory over the Persians in 490 B.C. before he collapsed!

On January 12, 1997, I turned 43 and had already run eight marathons (four of which were the New York City Marathon) that included a PR of 3 hours, 6 minutes that I ran in San Diego in 1983, when I was much younger but not as wise as I had trained alone. Boston was always on my radar. This time, I came upon a training group of very talented and gifted athletes. And later that spring, we broke up into smaller training units based on our individual goals. At that time, I needed to run at least a 3 hour and 20-minute marathon to qualify for my age group and gender. So, through the rain, the heat, and humidity of the next few months, we trained and competed like a well-oiled machine, race after race in distances ranging from an 8K to a 10 miler, to a half marathon then finally our individual qualifying races, a full marathon (26 miles, 385 yards for those of you who may not be sport enthusiasts or runners). And I chose the New York City Marathon, not because it was an easy course (it's one of the toughest marathons to run to qualify for Boston due to the five bridges that separate the five boroughs and subsequent hills in Central Park) I chose it because of familiarity; I knew the course like the back of my hand. I wanted to finally conquer the beast on my own terms. Call it unfinished business.

On November 2, 1997, the morning of the race began with a light drizzle then it rained the entire day. Also, there was no ‘chip' timing back then (a 'chip' is a device tied to your shoelaces that triggers an electronic sensor at specific checkpoints along the race course, especially at the start and finish so that everyone has an accurate record of their overall time) which meant I needed to get as close to the starting line as possible before the beginning of the race so I wouldn’t lose valuable time getting stuck behind 30,000 other runners in front of me, preventing a ‘clean’ and precise start. However, I found I always had to ‘pee’ right before most of my races due to nerves so this time when I lined up, I got as close to the starting line as I could, to clearly see the mayor who would start the event. And after all the many hours of effort and miles of training, I wasn’t taking anything for granted. So, I wore a plastic garbage bag holding a large plastic cup underneath, discreetly peeing in the cup as needed then I discarded the plastic garbage bag and carefully placed the cup off to the side when I began my journey. And it worked alike a charm. I was only 20 seconds behind the starting line when the starting cannon went off!

After crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, a span of over 2.5 miles and a height of 693 feet (the tops of the towers were not visible that day due to the low overcast and photographers usually positioned there at the start of the marathon were banned from using the perch that day), at 6.2 miles into race, deep within the borough of Brooklyn, I hit my stride as I was right on pace and it never changed for the next 20 miles!

By mile 17, later in the race, I was in Harlem heading north on 1st Avenue toward the Bronx with the rain beginning to come down ‘sideways’, when I came upon a black man who was cheering us on. He kept on chanting, ‘Let’s give it up for these dudes, cause they’re all meat, no potatoes.’ At this point, I had been nursing a blister on my left foot since my socks were thoroughly soaked which felt like it was the size of Buick! After hearing the cheer repeatedly, I laughed so damn hard I never gave the rain or my foot a second throughout the rest of the race.

As I rounded the corner, coming out of the south end of Central Park onto Central Park South, heading west with a little under a mile to go, it began to thunder as I passed a Japanese percussionist bashing away on a huge ceremonial Taiko drum. I then began to wonder when the ‘fat lady’ would sing as it seemed like more of a ‘Wagnerian Opera’ than a sporting event!

When I hit the finish line near ‘Tavern on the Green’ in Central Park, it was mission complete, I had qualified for Boston by running 3 hours, 18 minutes, 10 seconds! I believe this to this day, the strategy of using the 'plastic garbage bag' ploy was so invaluable, it probably enabled me to conserve the energy needed throughout the race that produced my successful outcome. And it was wise advice due to the fact I had been working with three experienced coaches who were all accomplished athletes themselves, who acted as my attentive mentors. However, the sweetest moment after qualifying for Boston came when I attended my 25th high school reunion later that month, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I bumped into an old classmate who ran with me on the cross country and track team always beating me in our races (and it seemed that he hadn’t laced up a pair of running shoes since we graduated), I couldn’t help myself from letting him know I would be running the Boston Marathon in the spring!

Incidentally, when Patriots Day, April 20th, 1998 finally rolled around, I made it to Boston to compete in the 102nd Boston Marathon, finishing in 3 hours, 13 minutes, 45 seconds. I was 2,306 out of 10,289 men (the top 22 percent) and 2664 out of 20,344 overall (the top 13 percent). Personally, qualifying for the Boston Marathon was an effort never soon to be replicated but an accomplishment I will nonetheless, always treasure!

William Faulkner once wrote, 'Man, will not merely endure, he will prevail . . . he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.'

And so, in observance of both anniversaries (Subsim’s and mine), I offer the following toast to all the captains who are members of this ‘distinguished’ body:

May the wind be always at your back, and the sea gentle on your craft, with the sun ever shining upon you, wherever your voyage may take you in the next 20 years, and beyond!


Best wishes again,

Rich M.
(a.k.a., ‘Navelintel’)

[NightFromTheWest12]

Yeah I wasn't born in 1997. The only interesting thing about my life was being able to visit the Whiteman Air force base in my home state and being able to see the stealth bombers, missile silos, etc.

[rangingwarr]

I started pre-k in 97 so that was pretty fun I guess.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by rangingwarr

I started pre-k in 97 so that was pretty fun I guess.

rangingwarr!

[viribus]

1997 it's long time ago. It was last year of highschool. I was playing on PC some strange games like Emperor of the fading sun, Machiaveli the prince and good old The grandest fleet.

congratulations SUBSIM

[Hinrich Schwab]

1997 was a relatively good year for me. I was a HELL of a lot younger and and ZERO gray in either my hair or beard. I had been out of the Army for two years and was floating between jobs. I was working primarily as a night dispatcher for a towing company that ingrained within me a unique hatred for telephones that persists to this day.

I was, and still am, an avid gamer and 1997 was a hot year for gaming. It was the year I got my Playstation, along with Final Fantasy VII, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Resident Evil Director's Cut. I still have that Playstation, which still works like a champ, and those games. What I really wanted was a computer, which I really could not afford. My only knowledge of any Subsims at the time was the port of Silent Service on the NES, which I only knew about because it was released under the Konami/Ultra label. I never even gave it a second thought. My interests were elsewhere at the time.

Despite being happy that I was out of the military, I was still pissed at the Clinton Administration for the downsizing and all of the UN crap related to Bosnia, which I missed being deployed on back in '94 simply because my unit was told to stand down at the last minute.

When I wasn't on the Playstation or raging over politics like sophomoric 20-somethings do, I was knee deep in Dungeons and Dragons. 1997 was a pivotal year for D&D because it was the year that TSR was bought out by Wizards of the Coast. I was NOT thrilled by the acquisition and expected the new owner to ass up the game. To be fair, 3rd Edition and 3.5 were great...then 4th came along in the succeeding years. Some of my trepidation from '97 was justified. I am still waiting for those clowns to make a GOOD next-gen D&D computer game.

1997 was a good year. While I had no idea this place existed at the time, having no computer and different interests, I certainly look back on it with some nostalgia...if for no reason than to wish to be a 22-year-old again. Going gray sucks.

[kobiwaldi]

Happy Birthday

97...

i think i got my driving license and a at the end of the year i joined the german army for 10 years. a lot has changed since these days. i got married, have a 12 years old son now, changed my job 6 times but playing sub sims has never changed.

curently im still studying for my dreamjob and i hope this site will stay forever