I downloaded it in late 90s but I suspect it was from earlier in that decade. On the demo version - which is all I had - you could drive an Amtrak (I think) train of some kind... somewhere. I'm pretty sure you drove it using the numeric keypad and the sound effects such as they were came through the PC speaker. I've got a really really vague feeling ze Germans were involved somehow too, either cause they developed it or the full version had an ICE in or something, but this could be total nonsense. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? ChatGPT certainly doesn't! Can't for the life of me find it or its name or anything.
You're not talking about MSTS, are you ? I remember, as soon as you left urban areas, there was barely any scenery at all... That seems long ago, seen from today...
I don't think this is a serious post but just on the offchance it is - it's wayyy before that technologically although maybe not temporally. I can't remember if you could launch it from Windows but it defintiely ran in DOS mode. There was only a cab view and we're certainly not talking photo realistic either, even by the standards of the time. I'm actually quite surprised I can't find it, it would have been niche but not ludicrously so.
It's not easy for me to make quips because of the language barrier, and this time at least I was serious. Your description of an Amtrack train really reminded me of the Acela cruising into the void of what was supposed to be the North-East Corridor. Plus, I remember already having the MSTS CD at hand in 2000, so the time frame of late 90's could have matched. But your allusion to PC speaker made me doubt, as I got my first "Multimedia kit" (sound card + CD-ROM drive) around 94 or 95. Anyway, MSTS was my first PC train sim, only played A-Train and the SNCF official simulator before that (can't remember anything else). Sorry mate !
There was a train sim made by a chap called Jens Schubert, called Railsim. Had German and US variants, very simple cab view graphics and sound through the PC speaker. Each version came on its own 3.5in floppy disc! Also had a very simple user editor. Not sure what happened to the author, once MSTS came out all the little indie sims seemed to vanish. He may have become involved with helping develop Zusi. The other programme I recall from that era was the original Trainmaster which used a side scrolling display to represent passage of the train. However that did have Soundblaster support and played a very basic proper loco sound through the main speakers.
Good one. Trying to remember if it was a MS-DOS programme, probably was but luckily didn’t require hours trying to set up a custom config.sys and autoexec.bat to get it running as so many other games at the time did (here’s looking at TFX!).
Those were the days, computer says no! Spend an hour typing the same command line again and again only to realize one letter is ment to be upper case. That actually looks similar graphics to the train games the kids play on Roblox. Strangely, Roblox requires a half decent GPU to run it though.
I think you are correct on that, Maik. If I recall the earlier versions of Zusi had a utility to import Railsim routes, though they didn't look that great compared to routes built in the Zusi editor - which I never could understand how to use!
