Sim Innovations Forums

Nice choice on the tablets

Just need to get rid of the '3d cockpit' now (easy in X-Plane as you can just edit the airfile in planemaker - remove all the crap and then use trackir etc....) - imho much better when you have a fixed cockpit. - FS2020 ? - again, I know Jack about it - never tried it probably never will for the next 5 years lol - but personally I hate flying with an 'external' cockpit and a '3d' sim cockpit view overlay.. it ruins the ambience.

VERY nice job though -really neat.

Thanks JP!

Yes, I'm having a bundle of fun with the setup and the Air Manager panels.
I don't know about 2020's panel options, waiting for the Air Manager to get in synch with it - they said they're waiting for the standards to develop further, and fair enough. I'll prob post another panel video as I'm waiting for a HOTAS Warthog to arrive... hopefully tomorrow !

Hey no worries.
Yeah, fs2020 is a bit of an unknown quantity at the moment as it doesn't seem to offer what it seems to say it does in the way of external interfaces and the road map is virtually non existent.. Hopefully that will change.
The 3d cockpit external view is a personal gripe lol .With a home cockpit / panel etc then personally I dont want to see a '3d cockpit' that moves about as you pan where the fixed 'home hardware / AM cockpit remains still - as it must - especially with multi monitors ! which I FS2020 doesnt support and there is no timescale for such support unfortunately. In X-Plane you can select 'forward view only on all monitors, however, then you cannot use trackir for example (trackir only works in XP with 3d cockpit). But, you can get around it by dumping all the internal panel displays in XP from plane-maker. Then you can do what you want.
I love the idea of using modern'ish' tablets as they tend to have great screens. My Samsung Tab S 10.5 is full oled and absolutely amazing -SM-T800 - android 6.1 . they are old'ish' now but still holding a good price. I wish I could get 3 or 4 of them. Best screen I have seen.

Regarding the Warthog... nice. !.. damn shame as I have a totally unused one in the box. If you want another - let me know ... (I am making my own design custom FFB GA yoke specifically for XP as all the data you need for FFB is available in X-Plane. so will not be using the Warthog unfortunately) - most parts for the yoke are getting here bit by bit. (From the US and the slow boats from China - also from the EU) - a multi national affair lol.
You will LOVE the warthog though, it is absolutely amazing. there is simply no other 'HOTAS on the market that can hold a candle to it. For you kind of aircraft is is the dogs 'goolies' . There are some neat brackets available that offer a lowered position that is more natural - however, as you are making your own cockpit then of course you can mount the 2 halves exactly where you need them. You wont regret the purchase at all. Keep up the great work !.
Don't know if you have used trackir Migman ? but it is a superb piece of kit.
Joe

MiGMan wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:45 am Thanks JP!

Yes, I'm having a bundle of fun with the setup and the Air Manager panels.
I don't know about 2020's panel options, waiting for the Air Manager to get in synch with it - they said they're waiting for the standards to develop further, and fair enough. I'll prob post another panel video as I'm waiting for a HOTAS Warthog to arrive... hopefully tomorrow !

Oh, and that 90's cockpit is a work of art !. truly amazing. Looks like an early 60's / 70's oscilloscope CRT ? - did you ever get it wired up and working ? or was it an actual part from a panel ?
I remember my late 60's and 70's scopes with the round CRT. Even had valve sets that took two people to lift the damn thing haha - makes one marvel at the digital Tektronix scope. (mine is actually a Hantek 100 Mhz dual channel unit) but still - .....

Late 90's I had an 'almost' complete genuine 737-200 FIP (all 3 panels) and most of the overhead, but life took an a amazingly new turn in the road and it had to go..... now I have all the time my body and wife will allow haha - so starting again but with GA as I dont fly IRL anymore.. I do have a passion for Helos as well and have a bit of RL time in various models so am also sorting a generic helo rig out. It is quite simply apart from the cyclic where you need ultra precision but that can be sorted.
Tell me the tale of the scope CRT ?
Joe

jph wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:54 pm Hey no worries.
Yeah, fs2020 is a bit of an unknown quantity at the moment as it doesn't seem to offer what it seems to say it does in the way of external interfaces and the road map is virtually non existent.. Hopefully that will change.

I'm pretty confident they will add all the things we've become accustomed to. They seem to be very responsive to community input.

jph wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:54 pm The 3d cockpit external view is a personal gripe lol .With a home cockpit / panel etc then personally I dont want to see a '3d cockpit' that moves about as you pan where the fixed 'home hardware / AM cockpit remains still - as it must - especially with multi monitors ! which I FS2020 doesnt support and there is no timescale for such support unfortunately. In X-Plane you can select 'forward view only on all monitors, however, then you cannot use trackir for example (trackir only works in XP with 3d cockpit). But, you can get around it by dumping all the internal panel displays in XP from plane-maker. Then you can do what you want.

It's amazing when you think about it - the level of knowledge that's required to do all this, I guess the average has gone up, fuelled largely IMO by the popularity of car racing sims. Also the fact they're pushing 2020 to XBox is going to be great for us because of the millions more people that will get into flight sims.

jph wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:54 pm I love the idea of using modern'ish' tablets as they tend to have great screens. My Samsung Tab S 10.5 is full oled and absolutely amazing -SM-T800 - android 6.1 . they are old'ish' now but still holding a good price. I wish I could get 3 or 4 of them. Best screen I have seen.

Yea they are great and so cheap now. It was taking the F-35 for a spin in Prepar3D, and remembering a LM rep explaining the cockpit as "a big iphone", that inspired me to go from 2 to 5 tablets.

jph wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:54 pm Regarding the Warthog... nice. !.. damn shame as I have a totally unused one in the box. If you want another - let me know ...

Dang! Too late, it arrived this morning, but thanks for the offer!

jph wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:54 pm (I am making my own design custom FFB GA yoke specifically for XP as all the data you need for FFB is available in X-Plane. so will not be using the Warthog unfortunately) - most parts for the yoke are getting here bit by bit. (From the US and the slow boats from China - also from the EU) - a multi national affair lol.

Sounds great - do you have a cockpit blog?

jph wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:54 pm You will LOVE the warthog though, it is absolutely amazing. there is simply no other 'HOTAS on the market that can hold a candle to it. For you kind of aircraft is is the dogs 'goolies' . There are some neat brackets available that offer a lowered position that is more natural - however, as you are making your own cockpit then of course you can mount the 2 halves exactly where you need them. You wont regret the purchase at all. Keep up the great work !.

Oh yeah - I am amazed at the increased accuracy - and with the TPR pedals - I managed to get the R-22 off the ground, and back and in one piece - so immediately jumped into a Blackhawk as you do after 2 mins flight time.

jph wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:54 pm Don't know if you have used trackir Migman ? but it is a superb piece of kit.

Oh, totally - one of the true quantum leaps in sim interfaces IMO

https://youtu.be/L-SCh-wXR0A

jph wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 8:09 pm Oh, and that 90's cockpit is a work of art !. truly amazing. Looks like an early 60's / 70's oscilloscope CRT ? - did you ever get it wired up and working ? or was it an actual part from a panel ?
I remember my late 60's and 70's scopes with the round CRT. Even had valve sets that took two people to lift the damn thing haha - makes one marvel at the digital Tektronix scope. (mine is actually a Hantek 100 Mhz dual channel unit) but still - .....
Late 90's I had an 'almost' complete genuine 737-200 FIP (all 3 panels) and most of the overhead, but life took an a amazingly new turn in the road and it had to go..... now I have all the time my body and wife will allow haha - so starting again but with GA as I dont fly IRL anymore.. I do have a passion for Helos as well and have a bit of RL time in various models so am also sorting a generic helo rig out. It is quite simply apart from the cyclic where you need ultra precision but that can be sorted.
Tell me the tale of the scope CRT ?
Joe

Wow - you are the first person EVER to spot that!

It was from a medical oscilloscope - just the round dial with some transparent green paint in the middle. My electronics skills are approaching zero!

The pit was connected at the back to a 'telephone switchboard' I put together, which in turn connected to a dissasembled keyboard. Very primitive but it worked. Also had 'momentary switched rudders'!

I did try and get a software engineer to write a 'transcoder' - which failed, and I learned more in the process about interrupts than I had ever wanted to know. This was DOS days. DOS sims, which took over the entire keyboard mapping at a low level. I still run into that situation with some windows sims, like Eurofighter Typhoon for example, which totally ignores my Elgato Stream Deck and a 'button box' I put together in 'that other mob's' software.

Hi Migman.
Nice, i would date it at around 1955 to 1962 (I am in that date range as well lol.)
I also played around with a modified keyboard in early dos based flight sims. Also using a 555 timer to pulse the Function keys in msfs for throttle increase / decrease etc.
What interrupts were you using ? the physical hardware ones for the 80286/386 etc ? - that would be fun (not ) as even getting your comm ports (comm 1 on IRQ3 and comms 2 on IRQ 2, SB card on IRQ 5 and parallel on IRQ 7 etc was done by jumpers in most cases -- then you had the irq 'extender' (was it irq 9 ?) - eek !. what a nightmare/. I presume you used IRQ 1 for the keyboard interrupts ?

I never went down to that level on the 80x86 units.. On the Z80 with machine code level, which had only one hardware interrupt as far as I can remember, I has an ISR that checked for whatever was going on.
I played with machine code also for the 6502 but the paging was a bit of a nightmare. I wrote my first commercial program for a Sharp MZ700 Z80 based unit in 1985. - I actually found the original advert on line a few weeks back. It was an RTTY program for Radio Hams. - teletype over shortwave radio. Prior to this we used HUGE Creed 7B and 444 units at home.. a google search will show you the size of these things ! - I am a G4' from the early 80's - It was all hand written at the machine code level and then entered directly - I didn't have - and there wasn't - a compiler.......

I found a copy of 'Ham Radio Today' from 1985 with the original advert for the program (G4XRZ RTTY) including spelling mistakes oops - but the program worked and made a lot of dosh...
https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-D ... 985-02.pdf (search G4XRZ for the classified adverts) - the spelling mistakes are embarrassing haha (such as board instead of baud !) - but I can claim not my fault as you had to telephone the advert in to the magazine and the girls taking the advert were not too well versed in the actual terminology - as I found out.....
It was amazing to find such a magazine on line and looking back at the articles and adverts -- wow ! different universe.... anyway, I digress - It partially paid for a house move. I also wrote a couple of progs for the BBC Model B later and gained a nice nest egg.. in them days, it was free range.

I dont have a vlog etc, t is always a work in progress. I can send you images of lots of parts an pieces and many bits awaiting parts (like the yoke linear slides which I have but are awaiting polymer bushes
as the linear bearings are noisy as feck. nothing wrong with them, it is normal! the polymer units will quieten it down)
The actual yoke is from the US. I have a genuine Cessna 310 throttle quadrant and trim assembly. All the instrument parts (electronics and displays I have). I also have a cnc machine and a 3d printer but at the moment both of them are boxed as we only recently moved to a completely renovated 150 year old house in Portugal - well, it is nearly a year ago, but as Covid stopped play I am still awaiting the interior doors ! as they are custom made and the factory shut down in march - should be here soon. then I can fit the rest of my workbenches in the toy room. At the moment I use a triple 27" monitor setup and although I have the extra display(s) for AM I dont bother most of the time as I have enough hours in GA to fly the 172 by 'ear' and feel. I also fly ORBX in XP in the UK North and I know the area so well that I don't tend to use nav
I use a custom airfile for the 172 in XP (my own) that I love flying - the standard one is hopelessly wrong in many ways.
yes, it is amazing how things have advanced ...

Nice, i would date it at around 1955 to 1962 (I am in that date range as well lol.)

He he - yea I wouldn't know, I found it in a junk shop!

... What interrupts were you using ? the physical hardware ones for the 80286/386 etc ? ...

Ah, nothing so fancy. That's what my engineer at the time fell over, and I get it, as you said it was very difficult.

I used to unplug my keyboard and plug in the cockpit instead! Not the best thing to do but nothing ever broke.

... I found a copy of 'Ham Radio Today' from 1985 with the original advert for the program (G4XRZ RTTY) including spelling mistakes oops - but the program worked and made a lot of dosh...https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-D ... 985-02.pdf ...

Wow, what a great time capsule! I remember those days. Ham radio was very a very esoteric pursuit!

It partially paid for a house move. I also wrote a couple of progs for the BBC Model B later and gained a nice nest egg.. in them days, it was free range.

Great stuff! An entrepeneurial coder, like the folk behind Air Manager I dare to say!

I dont have a vlog etc, t is always a work in progress. ...

Very interesting projects. I like the combo of real world hardware with the computer gear.

It'd be great to share your projects - I've steered right away from hosting other folk's work (time !!!) - but maybe you can look at a free wordpress blog? It's all WYSIWYG these days, so very quick to upload stuff.

Hi Migman, as for entrepreneurial like AM ? - not even close in abilites. Corjan etc are WAY beyond. I was just at the right place at the right time even if it was 35 years ago haha.

I also did a lot of development work with 2MTR (144 Mhz) band Ham radio bouncing signals to and from the moon and back .. they were amazing days. (moon bounce as it was called - so FU to flat earthers haha)

It shows your age when we used KiloCycles instead of KHz !.

I also found this old article from much later with regard to modding the ubiquetous Yaesu FT290R for Sat and moon bounce.
KC lol...
https://qsl.net/ve7lgp/yaesu/Modificati ... FT-290.htm


"28-03-1999 FT-290R Mk1 - mod for 1kc and 100hz steps on FM for satellite working

I asked around for details of this Mod but no-one had attempted it.
I decided to take the bit between my teeth and sort it out. Here goes.
Remove the covers of the rig and locate the mode select switch on the front panel. (you only need remove the covers...nothing else)

Locate the wafer of the switch nearest to the front of the rig and identify the green and yellow wires. Arrange a suitable method of switching the wires around. With the wires transposed the rig will now step 1kc and 100hz on FM. Note though that SSB will be 25/12kc, simply flick the switch to tune SSB normally. (I used an external switch, but I am sure that the noise blanker switch could be used or replaced with a suitable DPDT switch). You will find that the rig will tune on TX making it much more suitable for satellite working.
If you want any more info please give me a call.

Joe. G4XRZ +AEA- GB7WRC.+ACM-16.GBR.EU"

You would have been impressed with the phased antenna arrays we used ! - and the towers and rotators and inclination rotators ....... short bursts of Morse code sent to the lunar surface and received back on earth.... It was a great adventure.
What I was doing cannot be compared to Sim Inno apart from they found a niche. the level of knowledge needed in my day was so much less than today.
I still have a couple of superb Kenwood TS-50 HF (shortwave) rigs (tx/rx 100 watts output) along with amazing xtal filers and some early DSP units.. there is still nothing to this day that, on the HF bands that can do better. - also a trio 1500 rx unit.
Anyway, I digress.

Sorry, it is a period in time I am privileged to have lived through. rather than the modern day degradation and irreparable damage to society emanating from the US and Brazil and the lead up to civil war in the US.
A very sad world we live in today in so many way..

[/rant off]

Wow, you definetely qualify as a Super Geek! Please consider doing a blog!

http://www.migman.com/supergeek.php

Yes, I agree re the rant. We are living in the best possible time (so far) in human history by all metrics, yet there are movements dedicated to dismantling a lot of the structures that made this possible.