It’s been far too long since anything major has happened to the Sim.
About time I wrote a brief update article though as there have been
some small incremental changes.Firstly, on the software support front, with the help of Leo from Beta
Innovations, the Controller now supports far more sim packages. Leo
found an issue with the code and the Controller now works with Orbiter.
As well as that, e have good support For FS2K, CFS and Xplane. In a
separate Patch,Leo has improved general support by icluding the ability
to read shift keys and num keypad separately.
IL2 is now supported too, so this more or less completes the list of simulators that I wanted to get working.
On the hardware front, there has been little progress. I now
have a proper projector screen, which fits a treat in front of the sim.
Image granularity is excellent and the screen is nice and opaque so
daylight flying can use the projector now.
The panel count is now 6 with around 120 switches operational.
A wireless keyboard and mouse makes control that bit easier from within the pit and the seat is now fitted properly.
Initial experiments with PIC microcontrollers continue. Although
the main focus for this work is for use in Rocketry and UAV projects,
the pit will gain from this with better input hardware being the
obvious benefit.
In general, there is still a residual issue in that hook
software is still needed to support the switches tat we don’t have
keyboard shortcuts for. Expect more work on this soon.
Check the Gallery for most recent pictures.
TurboTas 2004