by James "Nutty" Hallows

MTSET works similarly. The primary use for it would be to 'spread' the upper end of the analogue travel, giving finer control. Maybe you want to have fine control from, say, 50% of full throttle to full throttle. Something like:

USE MTSET 150

would force a raw value of 150 at MT detent. It would still go to 0 at full back, so there'd be a very rapid dropoff in throttle behind the MT detent position, and between MT Detent and AB Detent the value would run from 150 down to 25 assuming no ABSET had been executed. If neither of these are specified, then analogue throttle works just as it does now.

One of the upshots of these changes is that you can now use the BTN MT command with an analogue throttle. So in some sims, you could use it for reversing your thrusters, and in a harrier sim, one could program the MT /P /R to throw the throttle up to full, and reverse the nozzle angles for VIFFing in dogfights, and on the R to return the nozzles to straight back with minimum throttle. That's an edge I want to have in a dogfight!

I remember when I was discussing this with Bob in an e-mail, as he's always wanted to be able to get MT working in analogue, but in the stock TQS it would take a throttle pot with two sections. With this deal, it's just a little extra scaling, and you have the desired feature.

There are two new THR forms:

THR 1 0 5 ^ ^ a b c d

and:

THR 2 0 5 a b c d e

The effect of these is to leave analog throttle active, but to shorten the range so that the calibrated raw min and max values are returned at MTDetent and ABDetent respectively. Note that both statements specify no characters for the throttle move, only for the AB characters. The Type 1 statement uses 'nullchars' for placeholders, any character would do, actually.

This will allow a game such as Warbirds, for example, which has a WEP key, to be set up using analog throttle but still allow the generation of character above the AB Detent that could activate the WEP. A jet sim that only provided for character control of AB could, likewise, be programmed to generate those and still use analog throttle for basic engine control.

Note that BTN MT will be active even with analog throttle in effect (no THR statement). The area behind MT would still be creating changes in raw value in that case, but when using the above, the maximum raw value (minimum throttle) will be generated at the MT detent rather than full back. BTN MT will still work, though.

Click to continue

FoxTwoPro

8.) Fox Two Pro Digital

Obviously, I've been modifying Fox Two Pro to take advantage of the new features pertaining to these chips. So the new functions above are now included, including the new calibration routine.

I'm also toying with the idea of a new way of programming. It should be possible, now that I can detect what buttons/hats are being pressed in the 32 button mode, to allow programming with a "press a button, press the keyboard" way of developing your files. This will allow for much quicker and easier programming. Current owners of Fox Two Pro will of course receive free upgrades, and new owners will be offered both versions of the software.

I know that I've appeared to be very quiet this year, and it has been a busy year for me, what with qualifying in Dentistry, moving to a new part of England (Ipswich) to start my job, and getting engaged. But TM users can rest assured that I've also been working hard on my end on this project, and continue to do so.

9.) The USB story

So how does this setup compare to a USB F22 Pro, if one were to exist? Well, they'd be pretty difficult to tell apart. Let's discuss USB further as there are several hyped misconceptions floating around the net regarding it.

Many people seem to think that USB cures all ills. Actually, it will be an improvement, but not generally in the way most seem to think. For example, many people claim it's "an order of magnitude faster." On the one hand, that's basically true. An ACM card hooked to a 4-axis/4-button stick moves data at a rate equivalent to about 100 kilobits/sec, a standard port about half that, and USB moves about 1 megabit/sec.

On the other hand, so what? Consider the standard IBM gameport. Maximum time to read one is around 1 millisecond. Now look at what impact that will have in actual practice. Let's say we have a perfect joystick that reads in zero time, and lets say we're running at a frame rate of 30 frames/second using our 'perfect' stick.

Taking the 'frame time' (the inverse of frame rate) we come up with 33 milliseconds per frame. That's the time it takes the sim to read the controller, feed the data into it's flight model, combine it with the current aircraft state, generate a new aircraft state, and project the image that the pilot would see back out to the screen.

Go to Part IV.