Sunday, September 14, 2008

Panel connected to the simulator

Today I connected the hardware with FSX.

First of all I would thank Niko Kaan once more: it has been very vey easy.

SIOC runs in the laptop where I connected the OpenCockpits hardware through the USB. leksseecon instead runs in the same PC where the flight simulator runs.
I have a lan where each PC has a fixed IP number so I had to change the lekseecon config file giving the IP address of the laptop.
On the SIOC side instead I had a little problem because I forgot to configure sioc.ini telling which MasterCard is in the system and how it is connected. This problem was not easy to find because everything seemed to work well but it was not possible to read/change hardware values. At the end I found an hidden written in the main SIOC panel saying Stopped and after a short search in the forum I got the solution. What about writing iStopped in red?!?

Programming SIOC was much easier then I though but I have to say that the SIOC editor panel is slow and boring even for a short program like mine is. Next step is to program by writing a text file.

Before finishing and go to have dinner, I have to spend a couple of words on lekseecon. I think it is really wanderful and almost transparent. It connects to the remote SIOC with no need to buy WideClient from Peter Dowson.
Beside that, synchronization with the hardware happens by magic and in this way the SIOC program is shorter, faster to write and to debug. Thank you again Nico.

As I said everything worked Immediatly and I did what I want in just an afternoon playng with the software. I had to say that I am an expert programmer and sytem manager so I would not be surprised if those steps are less easy for someone else. But believe me, it is easy ;-)

Next step is to make the first fly with the panel. It is months that I am waiting this moment...

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