Gato, the first Uboat-Sim? | Forums

[Thomsen9U]

@ Negus1
(and all other of course)

I think we better leave the thread above

When I bougth my first PC in 1988, a 5 1/4"" disk with the Computer game GATO was included

It was included because i bought to that time a real fast and well equipped machine

40 MB Hard drive
386 Processor with 640 kb RAM, 16 Hertz
and a EGA-card displaying 16 (!) colours
plus an 14'' Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard, and a 9 needle matrix printer for only 10.000 DM => 5.000 Euros.

This machine (and the game) acoompagnied me for two or three years, until I graded up to a new marvellous and extremly fast Tandon 486 Computer....

I found that in the Net, From a place where they are offering the game for download (131 kb!)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Gato
The first World War II submarine simulation ever made for the PC, GATO was a true pioneer in this niche genre, an ambitious sim that features a lot of realistic instruments and weapons. As the submarine history page at Subsim.com describes it: "This was the first sub simulator for a personal computer. The graphics were very limited, CGA with stick figures for ships, of which there were five enemy types. Although it simulated GATO class subs, there were only four bow torpedo tubes available. All functions were generated by the keyboard (mouse? what's a mouse?). The mission area was very limited--a group of islands in the Pacific, which was subdivided into 20 "quadrants". You pressed the "M" key for new missions and they were transmitted by Morse code. You were instructed to keep in mind "the enemy may break Allied code at some point. Some messages may be enemy fakes designed to trap you." How's that for early efforts at realism? Resource management was one of the game's subtler features. Your primary strategic objective was to complete as many missions as possible with the supplies you carry before returning to the quadrant where your subtender waits.

Gato was the Pong of submarine simulations. When the first players encountered Gato, you can imagine they thought it was pretty significant. They had to start somewhere." True enough. Primitive, but honorable for the pioneer that it was.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry, I did not find any screenshots...

Now, has someone, something older???

Mahlzeit

Stefan
U 664

[Thomsen9U]

@ Negus1
(and all other of course)

I think we better leave the thread above

When I bougth my first PC in 1988, a 5 1/4"" disk with the Computer game GATO was included

It was included because i bought to that time a real fast and well equipped machine

40 MB Hard drive
386 Processor with 640 kb RAM, 16 Hertz
and a EGA-card displaying 16 (!) colours
plus an 14'' Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard, and a 9 needle matrix printer for only 10.000 DM => 5.000 Euros.

This machine (and the game) acoompagnied me for two or three years, until I graded up to a new marvellous and extremly fast Tandon 486 Computer....

I found that in the Net, From a place where they are offering the game for download (131 kb!)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Gato
The first World War II submarine simulation ever made for the PC, GATO was a true pioneer in this niche genre, an ambitious sim that features a lot of realistic instruments and weapons. As the submarine history page at Subsim.com describes it: "This was the first sub simulator for a personal computer. The graphics were very limited, CGA with stick figures for ships, of which there were five enemy types. Although it simulated GATO class subs, there were only four bow torpedo tubes available. All functions were generated by the keyboard (mouse? what's a mouse?). The mission area was very limited--a group of islands in the Pacific, which was subdivided into 20 "quadrants". You pressed the "M" key for new missions and they were transmitted by Morse code. You were instructed to keep in mind "the enemy may break Allied code at some point. Some messages may be enemy fakes designed to trap you." How's that for early efforts at realism? Resource management was one of the game's subtler features. Your primary strategic objective was to complete as many missions as possible with the supplies you carry before returning to the quadrant where your subtender waits.

Gato was the Pong of submarine simulations. When the first players encountered Gato, you can imagine they thought it was pretty significant. They had to start somewhere." True enough. Primitive, but honorable for the pioneer that it was.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry, I did not find any screenshots...

Now, has someone, something older???

Mahlzeit

Stefan
U 664

[EmbarkChief]

"Silent Service" on my old Apple IIC was my first sub sim. You fought on the allied side. That was probably around 1984 or so.

[Seeadler]

The first one I played was in 1982, Thorn EMI's Submarine Commander on a VC-20

It had an cool 8bit sonar ping sound

A screen from "Gato" for Atari, also around 1982/83

[Thomsen9U]

Hi Seeadler

Yep, this is the screen I remember!

These beautiful drawings of the ships are unforgetable!

Can't remember for sure, but the control section looked a little bit different, but Jesus I played that damned thing for hours!

Mahlzeit

Stefan
U 664

[HeibgesU999]

Silent Service on my Peanut aka IBM PCjr.

[negus1]

The Gato I really did not know ...

but the submarine commander was my first subsim on atari 800 xl. did not remember that it looked that simple

wow, was it really 20 years ago???

"Negus 1 an alle kleinen Brüder, wir greifen an! Kameraden, dicht aufschließen zum Sturmangriff! Die Begleitgruppe aufpassen auf Indianer. Wir machen Pauke, Pauke; nur die Ruhe, Kameraden, alles mir nach!"
Maj. Dahl JG 300

[negus1]

i just spent a few thoughts on the fact how easy it was for the first sims to satisfy us. of course the first sim was better than no sim.

but with every new sim it got harder and harder because the new sim had to offer all features of the old sim and had to add some new features. so where will it end ...

"Negus 1 an alle kleinen Brüder, wir greifen an! Kameraden, dicht aufschließen zum Sturmangriff! Die Begleitgruppe aufpassen auf Indianer. Wir machen Pauke, Pauke; nur die Ruhe, Kameraden, alles mir nach!"
Maj. Dahl JG 300

[TheGeneral_D]

I remember thinking how unbelievably awsomely realistic the graphics where for silent hunter on PC. Man, it is amazing how far games have come. Same thing with the original Nascar Racing game. I remember thinking, "my GOD, These graphics are unbeatable!!!" Now compare the original with the latest Nascar Racing 2003.

If you think about it, that wasnt THAT long ago..mid 80's. It scares me to think of what games will be like in another 15-20 years. And what the price tag of the machines we will need to run them will be ....

[gilbertf-france]

that was the first sub game i played on pc. i was using a 8086 7.5 mhz pc with 512 mb ram. i loved the game. the message was in morse at the beginning of the game and i learned morse because you had an option to only receive it in morse with sound.

when i played it, i closed all windows and put myself in the dark, like being in a sub. i had my pack of food for the hours to come and nothing could disturb me. then i would do missions, grabbing messages in morse and writing them. very often i had coordinates but i was not sure about the mission to do because i had screwed the morse part

i stopped playing it only a few years ago and i had kept the 8086 just to play it. i miss it

later i tried wolfpack. while it sucked as a sub sim, it was a much better improvement with mouse ! i loved its mission editor. i created missions i exchanged with a friend that was creating missions for me so we wouldn't know in advance of what would happen

SH2 was nice but it's so scripted i played it once and now it's on some desk, taking dust.

i hope they make sh3 with a dynamic option. if they do, we will anyway get newer versions just to get more options and improved graphics. having dynamic does not mean they wont sale us new versions but that we'll want the same good stuff with more impressive graphics, maps and enemies at the same time.

i'll never forget gato and the fact that i put myself into a dark room to play it and learn morse too.

the game was written in basic too. at the start, it drawed components on screen to grab them as pictures to use them later in the game. some of you remember this ?