This 1970s tank simulator drives through a tiny world
čas přidán 16. 10. 2022
At the Swiss Military Museum in Full, there's the last remaining example of a 1970s tank-driving simulator. But there's no virtual worlds here: it's connected to a real camera and a real miniature model. ■ More about the museum: www.festungsmuseum.ch/
Camera: Tobias Buchmann
Producer: Sebastian Capeda at Viven viven.ch
Editor: www.davestevenson.co.uk/
Audio mix: Dan Pugsley cassinisound.com (my microphone failed inside the very noisy simulator, he did an incredible job!)
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Camera: Tobias Buchmann
Producer: Sebastian Capeda at Viven viven.ch
Editor: www.davestevenson.co.uk/
Audio mix: Dan Pugsley cassinisound.com (my microphone failed inside the very noisy simulator, he did an incredible job!)
I'm at tomscott.com
on Twitter at tomscott
on Facebook at tomscott
and on Instagram as tomscottgo
00:24
Now It's Time To Show My Real Magic Skills✨#oscarfunnyworld #funnycat #magic #shortsOscar's Funny World
zhlédnutí 35M
Komentáře: 4 719
Just in case I haven't been plugging it enough: I have a new podcast! It's called Lateral, it's about interesting questions, and the first episode is available right now, here: cs-tv.org/tv/video-5WysuFh0bNg.html
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There's something about seeing this massive training simulator from the 70s, thinking how much technological effort must have gone into programming a computer to have an entire map and to simulate what being in a tank would feel like from it... and then "We rebuilt it on a Raspberry Pi". Just goes to show how far computers have come, I guess...
Think of how much work went into programming all the ground info. He said it had memory of the entire map and what the ground was like to simulate that. That had to all be done by hand, EPROM and eeprom were bleeding edge in the 1970s.
True
When he said Raspberry Pi I was literally shook
I once saw something very similar for the Hawker Harrier - they had two huge rooms with mockups of scenery and a mobile camera gantry over the top.
The cool part is it doesn't know the map, it is all analog singles from the metal slid on the arm.
Hearing that it's running on a raspberry pi is the biggest flex for the pi foundation.
I bet they could have run some of the earliest Apollo missions using a raspberry pi.
@Eager Aurora perhaps they should create a special Pi for use in outer space?
@Eager Auroranot sure if your joking or not but they quite literally used a raspberry pie for most of them
@Argy News The pie that was founded in 2012?
@Argy News Pi not pie.
The Raspberry Pi part was so unexpected. „Yes this was the most advanced Technologie of the time. But it can also be recreated on this device programmers use in their free time for fun“
technology*
That was my response as well :)
@DoraTheDestroyer ok grammar police
@Zythe Use correct punctuation, and always start your sentence with a capital letter.
This tank sim ran so that other tech could walk
Now you know it. If youre in Switzerland and have a tank, you are allowed to drive in the middle of the road.
It's less that you're allowed to and more that no one can stop you 😂
I think with a tank there isn't really a "side"
Same in any country. Except America, where every civilian is armed with anti-tank weaponry, for "preservation of freedom"
I’ll tell Rommel
If you are ANYWHERE, you CAN drive a tank in the middle of the road. Or anywhere else you want. Who is going to make you move?
That’s exactly how I learned to drive a tank in 1980. In Germany. The instructors even put action figures on the map. Was super fun
Geil :D
were you in west Germany or east? cuz I'm Czech and my dad was training around that time as well and they just drove real tanks here, he lost part of his finger loading a tank the wrong way actually, anyway im just curious if these were purely a western thing or if they had these in the east block as well
@Ash Morel It was in the west. And we did 10 days of simulators and then 3 or 4 days real tank.
@Nunya Bisy ness ok, thanks!
I have to ask.... did anyone run over the tiny people figures on purpose?
I used to be a tanker in the 80's and spent many hours driving in this simulator called FASIP, a german acronym for "Fahrer simulator für Panzer", it is really fun but also demanding because the requirements were very high. Note that there was also a same simulator for turret and gunnery called ELSAP.
You know how it goes, they try to put way more on you than is realistic so that in the middle of a battle it is not so stressful. Military psychology which actually does a fair job.
The sim in this vid is also FASIP, see upper right corner: 2:11
@Semper Sto good catch
Gunner - sabot, tank!
I made the army too but only 2 years ago, also in the tanks but nowadays they are leopards and the simulator is virtual with a 3D world. They explained us how it was made in the past and seeing this video is really funny comparing the two
I love that it took Tom less than a few seconds to go directly from "I should be on the correct side of the road" to *I'M A TANK*
🤣🤣🤣
Tom get out of the tank!
You ARE the correct side of the road!
Its a literal trump card. You cant beat Tank
@Das Kampffredchen A-10 Warthogs: "Knock knock."
I'm so glad these guys went through the pain of putting this back together and getting it functional. This is so awesome
Wow, seeing that analogue/electromechanical solution of that time period is endlessly fascinating. It’s so simple in the concept, but so complicated in the execution and the electronics involved. Massive respect to the museum for restoring/resurrecting this piece of history.
We had exactly this type of flight simulator at McDonnell Douglas in the 1980s and earlier. It had a coastline, and there was a sticking-out point of land with a lighthouse on top of it. Through one of those weird glitches that happen sometimes, the lowest "altitude" that the camera could "fly" was just a bit too low in that one area, and if pilots weren't careful they could knock the lighthouse off of the board.
I can't remember where exactly, I think in Germany, I was doing a checkride in a simulator and on the wall in one of the flight planning/ briefing rooms was a large section of the 3D relief map they used to use in these analog (camera) type simulators. I want to say it was in Illesheim... ?
Dude I thought that said McDonalds I was like "burger flipper VR"
They had one at RAF Locking in late 70s ,I flew in it as an air cadet ,still remember "buzzing" the church
Ah, you worked for an Offense Contractor - the people that have brought us into completely unnecessary wars for the last 40 years. A well spent life.
Until a few years ago I worked for a company that build military flight simulators. The older guys told us about how the simulators used to look very similar to this one: With a model plate and a camera moving over it. An interesting anecdote is that apparently spiders loved to crawl into the cupboard the plates were stored in and surprise the pilots. From the perspective of the camera they would look like hundreds of meters tall monsters.
Ha, they should have put a spider on this for Tom, would have been hilarious 😂
Hehe
hundreds of meters seem like a joke, considering how big houses are compared to a regular spider
Aliens: "We can't invade that planet, they've trained for everything! Even fighting giant spiders in tanks!"
@SAULV " *from the perspective of the camera* ..."
I find it absolutely awesome that, since starting my job at a facility that still uses this old tech, I can appreciate the kind of effort for analyzing circuits and finding replacement parts it took to get this working. Never in my life did I think I'd be using an oscilloscope or logic probe as old as my mom to be trouble shooting next gen warfare technology. Bravo to the engineers and technicians who got this fully functioning again! And a thank you to them as well for seeing it worth preserving!
Bloody incredible. Bravo to all who worked on it and those whom restored it. Bravo.
This tech plus current sim racing tech can probably be our gateway to remotely controlling cars on real non race track roads.
I'd argue it's already possible, the reason why we aren't using it I can only guess but it could be simply because viewers don't want races to feel 'faked'
Sure you could rc an actual car, what happens when you crash it?
@Sean Miller probably way cheaper to do so, it could be an engine and chassis with a simple electronic control system. As opposed to a full body car with extra things such as safety features like a frame, or seats, or windows or a body. Not to mention the driver being in the car.
@Sean Miller you ain’t supposed to crash it
That's absolutely fantastic, it's an insane mix of software, sensors, and a diorama. I hope it will be preserved.
That is very similar to the Level D airliner sims of the same period. But they had HUGE dioramas with mirrored walls to stitch together the "infinity" into the next diorama. The AA Flight Academy had massive rooms with massive dioramas for various airports. The computer added weather, clouds, etc.
Driving a tiny camera around a set is the coolest concept for a simulator that I’ve ever seen!
Maybe you're young, because this idea was obvious back in the 70s and earlier. The idea of a computer simulation would be the novel concept back then.
I hope it catches on again in the future
Nowadays it's much easier. Tiny WiFi cameras are easy to buy and cheap. Strap it to a small RC car/tank, put on VR headset and off you go!
@Huateng I'm sure the latency for this simulator is near 0 due to the analog nature of it which helps the realism dramatically. Not actually that easy to do a 1 to 1 in the modern era.
It's how the Apollo simulators worked as well :)
Very cool to see a good friend of mine in this video, we'll be honest and say that we never thought that Scott would discover the simulator and visit the museum! Glad you enjoyed playing around :)
You've got to appreciate what they were able to do with analog back in the day. So could this simulator fire it's weapon or was it strictly for navigation?
It was strictly training for driving. The person who drives the tank is not the same person that loads or fires rounds. That would require a totally different simulator.
@artemisia I figured.
This is INCREDIBLY cool, both from a modeling standpoint and a history standpoint
I tried one in the UK in the 80's, quite scary. they told me that some trainees were so frightened after a few minutes, that they wanted to get out.
Was hoping for more video of the simulated view from the POV of the driver. This is an amazing bit of analog tech.
Yes would have liked to see more of the driver's pov.
I always used to imagine these kind of things before VR really took off, there’s a blast from the past. Great Video 😊
I work for a sim company in the UK Singer/linkmiles. They had a tank sim and some great stories. Main one being they put a spider on one side of a hill so when someone gets to the top and looking down it scared the f... out of them.
Thank you for bringing the world to us
The real sized one or the miniature one?
Well said & agreed!
That's so wholesome, I feel the same
If only a tiny bit of it >_
This is really cool. Kudos to the Swiss military for saving this piece of history. I hope they kept the old computer even though it was not working - maybe just for show .. comparison to the rasberrypi would be fun.
As someone who has been playing with various PC based simulators for almost three decades, this really blows me away. I had no idea that something like this exists.
I was a 19K in the US Army back in the 90's, I would LOVE to check out this old simulator and give it a try. This is too cool!
Wow thats cool, ive been there multiple times and i have to say that it was a very interesting experience! The museum itself is great aswell
I used to wish something like this to exist where I can drive around dioramas. Turns out it already did!
i really like the editorial choice of ending the video with the old veteran saying "it's like a game but this job is NOT a game", gave me goosebumps.
His disposition made that line very powerful.
Caleb OKAY Maybe we will see a U.S Army Classified mod pack popping up one day? War thunder players seem to have all the fun with classified information.
Caleb OKAY It was called VATSIM right? I played the hell out of Arma 2 and remember friends telling me that The Army had its own secret version
To put it in persepctive, though, this is a "veteran" in a country that opted to stay neutral (and actually profit from) WWII.
@Ding Ding The CS-tv Buddy Just question the existence of a U.S military mod and I'm sure that in 4 business days you'll get linked a new workshop page.
This is absolutely genius. Kudos to the people who designed this
I was assigned to the 436th Airlift Wing, at Dover. I had the chance to go inside the flight simulator building for the C-5A. the simulator was actually small; the rest of the building was filled with maps that the crew actually flew a similar camera system over so they saw what they would on approach to any airport they had. If they had a mission into a different airport, they mounted a movie camera and took movies of the flight into areas they didn't have maps for. Projected on to the windshield, it was quite realistic and the next crews that flew into say Moscow with all the Presidential equipment, they knew what the terrain looked like and could familiarize themselves with air traffic control instructions before ever lifting off the ground. Now it's probably held in computers half the size.
The Swiss military museum must be full of absolutely pristine stuff.
Wow, this simulator was definitely ahead of its time. It's like a precursor to virtual reality.
insanely cool, can't believe they figured this out in the 70s
"We had to rebuild that on a Raspberry Pi" This puts things in perspective
They probably had to expand the number of GPIO pins.
It really does. I use a Pi to control a 3D-printer, and I often forgot how to powerful they are. The people who built this simulator would have blown their mind if they had seen Rasperrys on 70’s.
@Kalle Taimi klipper?
the computer that originally controlled this simulator was probably big and heavy enough that it needed to be moved with a fork lift.
Probably something like a PDP-11.
This is actually really, really cool. An ingenious way to solve the simulator problem, in a time before computing could do this. Wow.
Very interesting concept, I wish you could shown more of the tiny camera perspective though, wanted to see those tiny houses and objects the way you see inside the cabin.
Using the exhibit costs an additional fee, which is fair enough considering the expense of rebuilding, running, and maintaining it, so I suspect Tom and his team were asked to limit the amount of footage/deliberately chose to out of respect for the museum.
We need a total recreation of this EVERYWHERE
The fact that this can run on a Raspberry Pi is astonishing to me
You can just imagine that in the 1970's someone who worked in the tank training division who enjoyed building model villages in their spare time, heard about this project and immediately volunteered to build the models.
I'm a miniaturist and through the whole video I couldn't stop thinking about what a fun project it would have been to build that little model village.
It could still be a fun project. Nothing's stopping you from building a model village :D
@SteveHeist yes, but imagine being in the military and someone seriously asks you to build a model village. And then you seriously have to "repair" your village/tress, because someone in some sense of the meaning has driven a tank into you tree. Or the commander needs a difficult terrain and a tank driver seriously sketches out a path and specification and you and the guy in all seriousness build an obstacle course. (meanwhile, other serve guard duty - 5 days a week, 24 hours. - saturday and sunday are not defended)
@SteveHeist true, but my house is already overflowing with clutter and I'm still working on the same dollhouse I got two years ago. Not to mention my other hobbies. Still, one wonders - who got to build that thing? A soldier? A hobbyist (miniaturist or model railroad enthusiast) someone knew at the time? Someone's kid?
No military organization I know of would stoop to the embarassment of having it built by "a kid". It's the military! Not a hobbyist project! SMH 😋
@Michael Frey I am now picturing this entire scenario and getting an unreasonable amount of joy from it.
That perspective is amazing. As a kid, I used to imagine what it would be like to drive around in my Matchbox cars and Micromachines. Now I know!
Old simulators are honestly super cool, having to do so much for what little technology actually allows at the time.
Dude that is so flippin awesome! What an experience.
Tom climbs out of the cockpit and days later is still wondering if he's inside a simulation.
Wow I remember as an air cadet in the late 70s we went to RAF Locking ,they had a flight simulator worked same way,there was a room with a massive model village and countryside ,you could fly over in an enclosed simulator ,it was amazing
I actually laughed out loud when they mentioned they had to rebuild it on a raspberry pi. The idea that all of that runs on something that fits in my pocket is hilarious.
I’d love them to do a video on it. This is one behind the scenes I want to watch.
ok
The Raspberry Pi is also most definitely hundreds of times more powerful than the computer used originally. The computing power needed for this is very little, it's almost all mechanical. They could run this thing with a Nokia from the 90s, it's just that the Pi is cheaper than a 90s cell phone (those suckers are collectors items these days).
@gupiwa Where they got the Pi?
@Snax _ bruh its like available on amazon.
Honestly this would be awesome, and even then you can turn this into a video game idea
That is incredible a tank simulator based on miniature landscape, amazing 👏 👌 👍
This would be cool to have someone driving and other people get to watch the model of where the person’s going
It would have been nice to see more of the actual view through cockpit
The end hit hard, sending home that this virtual simulator game experience for you was used to train young men to go to war not that long ago.
I wish there had been more footage of the scene down at ground level in the miniature world, that looks fascinating!
Absolutely. I was hoping someone had also said this. 👍
Bump. Would love a "drive around town" from the model.
Ditto
Whole video was a bit short
If it intrigued you enough, maybe visit the museum yourself 👍
Wow, such an amazing setup for the 70s!
Muito interessante! 🌟
I actually remember training on a similar type of simulator in our army even in 2000's. Loved that.
I work in industrial simulation, the technology is very different now obviously but we still do some scale models! So awesome to see!
Respect to the words of the veteran guy at the end.
As a lover of miniatures and dioramas, this is just the coolest, cutest thing.
This!
ok
Happy 1k!
Absolutely agree. 😊
I remember 30 years ago when I was thinking about joining the military, I stumbled upon a picture of an installation like this and straight away understood how it would work, just got curious if I could drive through houses with that big camera arm...
I love stuff like this! They used to do the same thing for flight simulators, there’s some old videos of the RAF ones on CS-tv. Great to see that you can go and try this one, might have to visit this museum one day.
“Wow, you got to drive a tank?” “No, I actually sat in a tank while driving a remote control sewing machine but I assure you it was very realistic the way I crawled over those toothpicks.”
I love that there is an analog real world medium in the process. The fact it is using a physical surface means it can't really be the same each run, perhaps that part is worth keeping in future.
the sky moving was so crazy, like a video game or something but in real life
I really liked the tank guide's last sentences: "Here it's like a game. This job is not a game."
Agreed, the word "this job" actually could referred to many actually: Keeping the museum, restoring/maintaining the simulator, as the tank coach or as the tank driver itself. All of these are not a "game", a serious life matters.
@Chaosfred War isn't a game
Considering war drones etcetera, this statement has aged very "well".
@mso1ps4 I don't think they were saying it is.
It looks like a game, it feels like a game and is a game. But this is not a game.
Interestingly, I'm not sure this is necessarily the last one left in the world. Back when I was a cadet (must have only been a few years ago, 2018 perhaps?) we went on a trip to Germany and some of us got to try one of these. Unless it has been dismantled since then, there may be more still in use.
I had the privilege of trying one of these out in '95 when I was teaching English in a military base just South of Madrid. It was still their primary tank training tool at that time. Very cool.
This is awesome. Just wished you showed more of the simulation driving around.
Thank you for showing this amazing piece of technical history. Awseome! Never would have imagined that somone could build something like this. Great!
This is the coolest miniature related thing since Warhammer 40k.
The enthusiasm Tom has for simulators is impeccable. He's such a great inspiration that now I really want to try this tank simulator myself.
Lmfao same actually 😅
Go Swiss, I guess. It has something to see except tank simulator.
Certainly has. Sadly, my Invitation to check out the new Ship Engine Room Simulator at my Maritime Academy didn't get past his Management. Things might have been different if I contacted Tom Scott himself.
Personally this is more advanced then our simulator game because your in a moving box instead of a none moving chair...
I got to try this thing a couple of years ago, it’s incredibly fun!
That is one of the coolest things I have seen in a long while. The tech behind it is very clever but also kind of simple (and also complicated)
It runs on a freaking RaspberryPi. further proof that if you are an aspiring programmer, you don't need fancy equipment to learn
"It is really dangerous what you do" "Here, it's a game, it's like a game" "This job is not a game"
My favorite part
Wow! What an experience. I would love to do this some day
Quite possibly one of the coolest things I've ever seen
I am living 30 minutes from this place and had no idea this would exist?! Just stepping out of the simulator right now at it was indeed amazing!!! Many thanks for having it make me know it !! 😊
i live 5 min away from it, also didnt know they had this :D
Oh you lucky guy. I’d love to try this ! 🥰
@SugarFree Have you guys tried it by now?
@Manc Biker Yes it was indeed very much worth it. 😀 In particular, there are great people that will explain you during ca. 20 minutes and in demo tank, how to drive a tank - before you step into the simulator. Not so easy at all (two engines, 6 gears, need to pay constant attention to RPM etc) but really fun! Cost 40 CHF (= ca 40 $ / 40 €). But now they have closed until April 2023 so need to be patient if you wish to try it….
Can you film the view and post it, cause that's the only thing I clicked this video for and there's hardly any POV shots. I want to know what it actually looks like.
Tom Scott had a lot more fun than he probably admitted in the video.
I trained as a Chieftain tank driver on one of those at Catterick garrison in 1973 . Seeing it brings back memories good and bad .
Great video. That looks more convincing than most flight simulators.
The driving school I joined in 1990 had a similar setup for learning traffic rules, sitting in a little plastic car, and a kind of "disc" with the landscape was put under a camera and operated by the "inputs" from the steering wheel, throttle, etc. real fun because no way to get hurt :P
I remember a racing car simulator in the 70's here in the UK a bit similar but not as complex!
This is such a cool concept. Miniatures and dioramas are always so cool to look at, but to actually be *in* one? That's a world I'd like to live in.
The way you phrase it makes it sound like a Twilight Zone episode.
I wanna go there just for that :D
@Butter of Sorrow the book "On The Blue Comet" takes that concept, it's a good book.
Same here. Miniature builder.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
would be nice to get more footage of what it looks like through the camera...
That's really cool ! I did not know those kind of things were invented many years ago
is there a full length video of you driving or other people driving through the model landscape, THAT would be really interesting, as well as learning about the machine.
This was fascinating. Thanks for all you do
Only Tom Scott can tell me interesting about stuff in my own country I never knew existed 🤣 love it. Imma check this out for sure.
Many years ago I had a conversation with a very senior RAF officer who told me that years earlier while he was 'flying' a simulator using the original system upon which this is based, some other officers had stuck an enormous bluebottle fly on a pin and inserted it into the landscape where he suddenly came upon it on a high speed/low altitude route. He said it was horrific.
"MAY DAY MAY DAY THERE IS A GIANT BLUE BOTTLE ON MY WAY"
HAHAHAHA that is a great way to mess with somebody 😂
Lmao! That's brilliant! Must have been like an old monster movie. Someone should stick a few ants, a preying mantis, and maybe a small lizard like an anole into the tank simulator for the tourists during the month of October as a special treat, hahah.
That was the RAF Harrier sim I believe !
@Xavier Lignieres I believe so, at Wittering. Sometimes the camera would crash into the map! Also a tiny boat in a river was a scale model of a famous battleship, I forget which one, it's been 50 years!
I was an M1A1 tanker in the 80s. We had great simulators, but this looks great, I’d love to try this.
Imagine what a place like legoland or Disney could do with that technology
The guys at ILM who created the attack on the Death Star and the opening shot of the star destroyer learned the technique doing something very similar to this.
This is incredible, thank you for sharing.
That is way more sophisticated than I could have imagined.
I REALLY would have appreciated more footage of the diorama from his POV!
Same
same here. they just kept talking and talking. This is the new mode of making videos, they save footage by just having a guy looking at the cameramen talking about what you're supposed to be seeing.
Replying just in case someone has a link
Honestly same. It's like he doesn't want his viewers to see what's ACTUALLY interesting. We don't care about two guys talking we want to SEE the perspective of what you're SEEING.
He wants to be the special medium and we watch him talk about his experience instead of seeing it. Just imagine how pathological the production team has to be: Ton Scott is a king in the world he carves out and he employs people to arrange his adventures and film his glory.
How cool it would be to try an old analog tank simulator with Legolas as your instructor.
In 1990 I learned driving a Leopard 1 on a very similar system in the German Army. Was a lot of fun!