Success at last!!! ME not at fault!!!
NEWSFLASH!!!
Just a few minutes ago I finally got my FMS parallel interface to work with my Futaba 5UAF buddy box socket!
It turns out that the problem was being caused by conflicts with the Sound Blaster Live sound card.....even though Control Panel showed no conflicts with the LPT port. In fact, Control Panel lists nothing for my sound card related to IRQ 7 and I/O 378 that I can find!
The way I finally got the FMS parallel interface cable to work was to disable the sound card itself in Control Panel. I had previously tried disabling the Gameport, the Multimedia Interface, and the SB16 Emulation with no success. But I had forgotten about disabling the sound card itself! Once the Sound Blaster Live card itself was disabled in Control Panel, I was finally able to fly the FMS planes with my Futaba 5UAF transmitter!!!
But without sound, the FMS simulator loses a lot of it's appeal. :-(
I've already got Realflight G2, so the FMS parallel cable was really just an experiment to see if I could make it work......and to compare Realflight G2 with FMS. From what I've flown of both of them, Realflight G2 is light years ahead of FMS as far as realism is concerned.......but FMS is the hands down winner on price! ;-)
At this point, it appears that Windows ME wasn't the problem at all. It was the Sound Blaster Live card!
Thanks to all of you for taking the time to help me out with my FMS parallel interface problems!
But now does anyone have an idea about how to make the Sound Blaster Live card work without interfering with the FMS parallel interface?