[jordigh]

The information to properly land the plane is in the manual. The required air speed and altitude have never been a secret, if you read the manual (which I guess most kids didn't).

The real difficulty, not explored in this disassembly, is that the game has semi-realistic physics! My older brother was in flight school at the time and was able to easily land the plane and taught me how to do it.

As the article states, "Altitude and speed are both controlled by throttle input and pitch angle". So you can't just hit the engines or air brakes button to change your speed. If you lower the nose of the plane, you'll speed up and vice versa! So you have to carefully juggle your speed and altitude by altering both your pitch and your engines/air brakes.

My brother taught me that my speed wouldn't reduce if I'm nosediving, so raise the nose a little while opening my air brakes for a quick reduction in speed and then level out to maintain altitude. The game actually models this somewhat accurately!

[IncandescentGas]

> if you read the manual (which I guess most kids didn't).

Most kids did't read the manual? I would rtfm for every game I got my hands on during the car ride home from toysrus or blockbuster. If Mom had several errands to run, I may rtfm a dozen times before I finally got home with the game.

[retrac]

In my experience used games were often traded or passed around as bare cartridges. And that's how I got most of my games.

[Barrin92]

I've been on a bit of a retro bender and have intentionally limited myself to nothing but the manuals and games and it's been so fun to rediscover how much thought people used to put into the manuals including the presentation and art. Extreme shame half of the time now even if you go and grab a physical copy you basically just get a key in a box.

[asciimov]

I rented the vast majority of NES games I played back in the day, getting a manual was uncommon, sometimes they came with a xeroxed copy.

For me, half the fun was trying to figure out how to play the game.

[esaym]

I would read the manual too on the ride home. But I think that was only for new games? I seem to remember that rentals didn't come with manuals. The best memory was my grandma picking me up to spend the summer at her house. We stopped by wal-mart and I grabbed the first release of Gran Turismo for psx. It came with a fairly giant manual. Had a three hour drive to her house. I read it over and over!

[LVB]

I certainly read the manual when I was asked to enter the 15th word from page 47 in order to keep playing Chessmaster 2000...

[nitwit005]

The people working hint hotlines apparently memorized some information from manuals, as so many kids without access to the manuals called with the same questions. The famous code from Star Tropics, for example.

[wdr1]

Despite spending most of youth playing the NES, I don't think I ever read a manual.

"Reliance on documentation is the hallmark of a novice & a coward."

[nubinetwork]

I don't even remember seeing the manual as a kid.

[aidenn0]

I played Top Gun by swapping carts with a friend; manual wasn't included.

[jrs235]

The saying for landing is: "throttle for altitude, pitch for speed". Most folks attempt the opposite.

[Boxxed]

> The information to properly land the plane is in the manual. The required air speed and altitude have never been a secret, if you read the manual (which I guess most kids didn't).

It's also on-screen. What's missing is the acceptable ranges -- +/- 100 for altitude, +/- 50 for speed, per the post. Knowing that the slop for altitude is much higher is definitely helpful information.

[rconti]

I don't specifically remember it, but I had the manual, and I was a voracious manual reader as a kid. I also remember the carrier landings being the hardest thing in any game I ever played. Felt like about a 1% success rate, and I never quite knew what separated a successful landing from an unsuccessful one that looked identical on approach.

[nineteen999]

Even some of the very early versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator had a carrier landing scenario that was somewhat realistic IIRC!

https://flightsimulator-forums-cdn.azureedge.net/uploads/def...

Thats from version 4 I think, but I vaguely recall it even being in the earlier monochrome versions ...

[colechristensen]

Man I miss manuals.

[_carbyau_]

Todays games have replaced them with wikis.

I miss being able to play a game and have things be somewhat apparent within the game. Nowadays it seems like you have to have a second monitor with the wiki open.

[scrame]

if you rented it or borrowed from a friend it was very very unlikely you had the manual. I don't remember how I eventually figured it out, but it's the landing instructions that I think are misleading.

[astrostl]

> The information to properly land the plane is in the manual

Look, I already liked the nerdy blog post! I don't need even more reasons to like it.

[ekropotin]

There was a manual =0