Comment by mwexler

It's interesting that the ARF post completely skips mentioning Eastern Front (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(1941)) which both revolutionized sim/war games on computers, and the interfaces such as a smooth scrolling map. Compare to other wargames of that time such as https://www.mobygames.com/game/14793/tac-tactical-armor-comm..., early "TUI" text interfaces.

He also had early experiments with simulations of interacting systems with Scram (manage a power grid) and Energy Czar (manage a country's energy policy during an energy crisis).

These showed his deft handling of cramming complexity into the limited resources of early 8-bit systems. Balance of Power was more mature than these, but even these early games showed massive promise of what Sim games could become, and what Chris Crawford could create.