[simpits-tech] Fed up with MS etc... Maybe New Sim

[Matt Bailey]

On Monday 24 January 2005 12:08, Manuel Bessler wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 16:53:11 -0600
>
> Phoenix2000 at phoenixcomm.net wrote:
> > Hi gang....
> > Are feed up with MS Flight sim and others? Need info cant get it..
> > want to do something different..
> > Want to get rid of EPIC cards and more crap...
> > What freedom to do what you want to do?
> >
> > Ok then please look at my NOTAM notice for Software under development.
> > www.phoenixcomm.net/~phnx2000/sim/notams.shtml
> > www.phoenixcomm.net/~phnx2000/sim/software.shtml
> >
> > I need to know what's cool and what's not.
>
> I see you listed FlightGear on that page...
>
> The point "can't talk to it" is definately not valid for FlightGear.
> There are a bunch of methods to get data in and out of the simulator.

	Plus it's open source, which leaves it pretty open-ended. If it can't suit 
your needs with what access the "stock" build provides, you can always roll 
your own version.

	I thought I'd point out something about X-Plane, actually........I'm not sure 
when you last looked into it, but for a while (since late 6.x, IIRC), X-Plane 
has supported a rather powerful plug-in API. Ben and Sandy have done an 
awesome job on it......sounds like with your programming experience you'd be 
in good shape. Here's the official page for it, if you want more info: 
http://xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/index.html

	Also, X-Plane by default allows UDP output of various data items (not nearly 
as much as the API, unfortunately, but it's growing now and then). You can 
also send data to X-Plane this way, either to change specific data items 
(like switch positions), or send events (like mouse clicks at specific 
coordinates, keystrokes, sounds, text). The big issue here is that the format 
of data packets isn't documented really well.......ok, it's documented, but 
the packet format often changes when the docs do not. ;) Still, it's a dead 
easy way to make add-on software and hardware work with X-Plane. When I first 
started messing with it, I was pretty much a programming idiot (for instance, 
I had to look up a tutorial to know how to even get a UDP server running). 
After a bit of asking and a lot of head banging, I was able to read the 
packets just fine in Python. I suspect if you looked at the docs you could 
have it working smoothly on the first go. :) I will eventually be using it 
for my MFD software and various switches/controls. It should work really 
smooth for switches......scan switches via a joystick API (in my case, 
Pygame, which rocks much), look at X-Plane's data, and if they don't match, 
send the appropriate keystroke/mouse event or just arbitrarily change the 
switch data item.

	-Matt Bailey