History
Until recently, constructing simulator rides was an expensive, high tech business. The first simulators were built to train military pilots. Long before the days of virtual reality, the view through the cockpit came from remote video cameras which moved on gantries above physical model landscapes. These model landscapes were huge, often the size of aircraft hangars. By the mid-1990s, computer virtual reality graphics replaced most physical models in simulators. Today's flight training simulators, like NASA’s, have virtual landscapes projected on multiple screens giving a 180 degree view. Much simpler simulators, running fixed video synchronised to the movement of the 'cabin', were introduced in funfairs in the same period. They seat about 12 people and require an operator.
Universal Studios originally invented the motion theater with their attraction The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera. Disney uses a similar plan and opened their Star Tours attraction in 1987. Universal's attraction did not open until 1990. This first ride was soon followed by the Back to the Future-themed Back to the Future: The Ride, which opened in 1991 at Universal Studios Florida and was removed in 2007 to make way for The Simpsons Ride.
Read more about this topic: Simulator Rides
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)