This 1970s tank simulator drives through a tiny world 

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: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5WysuFh0bNg.html

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*

"We had to rebuild that on a Raspberry Pi" This puts things in perspective

Hearing that it's running on a raspberry pi is the biggest flex for the pi foundation.

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“

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...

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.

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

Now you know it. If youre in Switzerland and have a tank, you are allowed to drive in the middle of the road.

Driving a tiny camera around a set is the coolest concept for a simulator that I’ve ever seen!

I really liked the tank guide's last sentences: "Here it's like a game. This job is not a game."

I'm so glad these guys went through the pain of putting this back together and getting it functional. This is so awesome

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.

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.

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.

I wish this was still a thing. Like if you could go to arcades and drive/ride this. There’s something magical in that miniature physical world.

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 REALLY would have appreciated more footage of the diorama from his POV!

As a lover of miniatures and dioramas, this is just the coolest, cutest thing.

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.

I wish there had been more footage of the scene down at ground level in the miniature world, that looks fascinating!

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!

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.

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.

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.

This tech plus current sim racing tech can probably be our gateway to remotely controlling cars on real non race track roads.

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!

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 recall the "urban simulator legends" about the instructor suddenly ending the lesson part and getting the student to chase the random "giant spider" (which is what they would have looked like through the magnification lens) across the model landscape

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.

This is INCREDIBLY cool, both from a modeling standpoint and a history standpoint

Thank you for bringing the world to us

This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. I wish there was a link to some uninterrupted tiny-camera tank POV footage!

The Swiss military museum must be full of absolutely pristine stuff.

For those that clicked the thumbnail to see the landscape, there's only about 10 seconds worth of footage of the model landscape.

Many many years ago I worked in a place that had an aircraft version of this - as the aircraft flew towards the mirror around the edge of the model, artificial cloud was generated and the camera turned around 180 degrees, the image was mirrored and the cloud removed. The aircraft then carried on. The detail in the model was incredible and all hand made / painted. It was mounted on a wall, vertically, not horizontally as shown in this video. I don't think it survived when the site was closed down - heartbreaking!

I love it, The tank model is a sewing machine guide/guard. I always found that piece fascinating to watch when I was younger and would watch my mom sew.

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.

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 always used to imagine these kind of things before VR really took off, there’s a blast from the past. Great Video 😊

Imagine a world where video games were like this. Hundreds of physical worlds in some office building or warehouse; when they need to do maintenance, you just see some giant guy in a grey jumpsuit hovering over the game world. The world we missed out on :(

that ending "it is really dangerous what you do, here is a game, it's like a game. this job is not a game" feels so important.

Was hoping for more video of the simulated view from the POV of the driver. This is an amazing bit of analog tech.

This is absolutely genius. Kudos to the people who designed this

Bloody incredible. Bravo to all who worked on it and those whom restored it. Bravo.

Now I have this weird urge to go and build my own version. That miniature terrain looks so cool when seen from the camera.

The gentlemen explaining the simulator were so excellent, I loved the older fellow, he feels like a good fatherly CO type. It's probably very nice to run a museum and not have to be overly concerned about needing to do the real thing, but his attitude would be good to have if they had to shutter the museum to do the real thing. Also what a great camo pattern.

tom was never actually let out of the simulator. poor guy thinks hes visiting all these places but hes actually just locked in a box is Full

Thank you for showing this amazing piece of technical history. Awseome! Never would have imagined that somone could build something like this. Great!

Wow! The thing I have noticed just now that in Tom Scott's videos, everything is a real place: he doesn't just tells us about some place in the past. He leaves links to a museums for US to try it, because he wants to share with us the knowledge of an existing of this place. I find it fascinating. Thank you so much, Tom! I hope it won't close by the time I will come there.

Theoretically this has the most realistic graphics of any simulator

I learned to drive an AMX10RC reconnaissance tank in an exact same simulator at a military base in Cassis in the south of France in 1984 when I was with 1ere REC. Those days it was state of the art. It may all seem a little crude compared to today's systems, but it was very realistic and taught you everything you needed to know down to the last detail. It was also very unsympathetic, recording every tiny mistake you made in preparation for the bollocking when you dismounted. It could simulate different weather conditions day and night, including night vision and infra red. After a week of simulated driving I was able to jump into the real thing and drive away with confidence. 🏁

That's incredible, it's like a giant 6 axis pantograph as far as the movement of the mini tank affecting the big tank. Absolutely ingenious.

That was great. Would love to check that out

It runs on a freaking RaspberryPi. further proof that if you are an aspiring programmer, you don't need fancy equipment to learn

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

Just a nod of appreciation to the seamless transition at 21 seconds. It’s like there’s no break in the voiceover!

I love the fact that the camera module is sliding on a sewing machine foot or whatever it’s called

This is incredible, thank you for sharing.

Brilliant solution I remember this on Tomorrow's World on the BBC. Imagine however pioneering this was in it's day.

in 1984, when i was in the military, i learned driving a Leopard 1 in a simulator just like this one. Nice to see that these guys preserved this one.

Cool that it actually uses a miniature set for the environment since you couldn't really make a computer simulation back then

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.

Wow, such an amazing setup for the 70s!

Did some training in a chieftain tank simulation at Bovi. It had the same system. Tiny camera on a large model map. Weirdest feeling ever if you crashed it, as it used to raise its self up so you got a feeling of being catapulted in the air. Also the giant spider running in front wasn't a good experience 😕. I think the model map is now in the tank museum, Bovington.

There was a hall in Bovington in the 80's with 4 Chieftain simulators - they only ever scheduled 3 trainees at a time as 1 was usually broken :) In the Bovington simulators the "Foot" was actually the foot from a sewing machine, repurposed.

This was fascinating. Thanks for all you do

This is so awesome! Best thing I've seen in a while. And it runs on a raspberry pi? Genius. Thank you for showing this to us.

This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It seems like such an out-there concept, so it's incredible to see that it was actually put into practice.

I wonder how hard it would be to develop something like this for Knuffingen / Miniatur Wunderland. A separate area where visitors are "actually" driving across the model landscape. That would be so awesome!

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.

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?

I'm an electrical engineer myself and this setup truly fascinates me. The genious and technical challenge to develop such a tool with the techonology available at the time is incredible.

I want a longer version and really take a look at every piece of the puzzle.

It really sucks that there's only one of these left in the world, these things should be in museums all around teh world.

thats crazy. a whole simulator is now being run on a raspberry pi. tech back then was always so simple yet brilliant.

This is great, Tom I think you have single handedly increased the wait time for this particular exhibit for the next five years 😁

Many flight simulators used to work this way. My father flew the Jaguar and they’d hide toy spiders and other things around the scenery, so you’d come round a valley at 500mph and suddenly see a 100ft high arachnid. 😅

I was in this very simulator today, partially thanks to this video. And that was awesome !!

I love old tech like this. they wanted to get something done and figured out how to make it happen with the technology of the time. Miniture cameras and a pressure tood connected to a hydraulic tank simulator is just brilliant.

I love how after doing extremely high tech 737 flight sim tom goes and do a miniature model based tank sim

3:50 Raspberry Pi: detected

Super awesome solution of a simulator back then. Thanks for brining us this awesome intelligent marvel engineering from the past

This is TOTALLY AWESOME! Great video!

I'm amazed every single time on the rate that you publish these high-quality episodes. You have video's once a week and still have a high standard show. I'm impressed and love every single episode.

Honestly the fact that this big simulator that was probably close to the pinnicle of tech in the 70's now runs on a raspberry pi is nuts

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.

"We rebuilt it on a Raspberry Pi" This is what stuck out to me.. awesome work to the museum *hats off* too you.

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.

I love the juxtaposition of your last video featuring a cutting edge flight simulator for airliner pilots to this vintage, analog tank simulator. Really amazing!

That is incredible a tank simulator based on miniature landscape, amazing 👏 👌 👍

Amazing , Thanks for the video 😍

That's absolutely adorable

This is next level! Wow, the fact that the metal slider translates in to simulator movements too?!

This is awesome. Just wished you showed more of the simulation driving around.

I think that was most awesome thing I have seen so far in my life

I know this is definitely a dream come true for Tom. It’s like one of those children’s shows that used toys for the story like “Thunderbirds.” It probably reminds him of “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons” which he said he used to watch reruns of as a kid in the “Driving Backwards” video.

3:44 "Everything except for the computer part is original. It was too old... And you don't find parts easily for that... so we had to rebuilt it on a raspberry pi" Got a chuckle from me, using a supercomputer indeed.

Really appreciate the words at the end from the instructor. This is not a game.

Tanks for the video.