From: Brad Hinkel 76640,3640
To: ALL

I am the Program Manager for Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.0 & I'm
excited to see all this conversation on Compuserve about this new
version of Flt Sim coming down the pike. We here at Microsoft do watch
this forum and I'm a little concerned to see some of the anxiety and
concerns out there about support for existing FS 4 technology in FS 5.
I wanted briefly to address the question of backward compatibility , and
hopefully to set some minds at rest regarding what we will and won't be
able to do and why we've made these technical tradeoffs in Flt Sim 5.

Microsoft completed extensive focus group research with our customer
base regarding product and feature requests for Flight Sim 5.0.   The
most requested features were:
1)  increased graphics quality
2)  support for a true lat./long. coordinate system

These then were two key features to implement in the new product.
However, both of these features pose problems for backward
compatibility.  It is very important to Microsoft that we support our
loyal users' investments in FS 4 technology, and we are working to
provide a good migration path to FlightSim 5.0, but we have to consider
these technical constraints in evaluating the level of backward
compatibility possible with FS 5.

To be specific, we plan on Flight Sim 5.0 supporting:
1)  Flight Sim 4.0 standard scenery files.  These include the F1
database and SCN files, including those from Mallard.
2)  A&SD 4.0 files are displayed and usable with the Flight Sim 4.0
database, within FS5.  This means that you will be able to use your A&SD
4.0 scenery but FS 5 will return you to the FS 4.0 scenery world when
these scenery elements are called up.
3)  Also, MOD and VID files will be supported.

We plan to update Aircraft & Scenery Designer to support the new
FlightSim 5.0 features and provide additional backward commpatibility
for A&SD 4.0.  This product would provide converters to translate both
A&SD 4.0 scenery and A&SD 4.0 aircraft into A&SD 5.0; these could then
be further modified as A&SD 5.0 objects and would work fully with
FlightSim 5.0.

The whole Flight Sim team wants you to be able to enjoy FlightSim 5.0
even more that you have enjoyed FlightSim 4.0 and we all feel it is
important to support FlightSim 4.0 files.  We believe that our strategy
will give users both the greatest possible FS 5 product and the
important protection of investments already made in the product and its
add-ons.  Hopefully this mail has cleared up some of the confusion
regarding MS strategy and FS 5 support for backward compatibility.

I would like to add that I am focused solely on getting this product out
to market as quickly as possible-- however, we will continue to listen
to your comments and suggestions and strive to incorporate them into
future releases. I will not be able to answer all of your questions in
as timely a manner as you might like and apologise in advance for this!
I will try to support you as best as possible.
===========================================================================

Also, there was another message from a Mallard employee that said new
scenery will be availble for FS5 by the end of the year.  San Francisco,
Washington, and 4 others.

]James