That’s redundant, though - Microprose games were always awesome. They came in big boxes, with keyboard overlays, and I remember being fascinated with the thick manuals, which were like a condensed version of Jane’s. The other kids had their dad’s Playboy magazines; I had the manual for Gunship. Did you know that the Sgt York DIVADS was a complete disaster? I do, because I had Gunship, and the manual said so. I learned the word “boondoggle” from it. In fact here it is, as a 19mb PDF. It’s so old it identifies the Soviet T-80 tank as a T-74, and pooh-poohs those who call it a T-80.
I remember there were two versions of F-19. The one I had was called Project Stealth Fighter and was clearly based on the Revell model up above. You got to bomb Libya! And Iran, with Iraq as an insignificant nothing off the edge of the map that was on your side. Imagine attacking Iran! How absurb. There was a second release called F-19 Stealth Fighter that had an actual F-117 in it. I had always assumed that the F-117 was unveiled during or just after the Gulf War, but apparently it was exhibited in April 1990, about four months before, which means that F-19 must have come out in the tiny window during which the F-117 was known and Saddam Hussein was still our smiling, oil-selling, weapons-buying Middle Eastern buddy. He seemed like a nice guy at the time, much nicer than those sinister Iranians and their cloaks, it’s a shame he went off the deep end. We like people who like money, and he liked money.