FMS with Windows ME
 

Help!!!
I built a parallel port to buddy box tx interface cable for my Futaba 5UAF for use with the FMS 7.0 simulator. I used a circuit from this web site:
http://www.tmac.asn.au/fms_free_flight_simulator.htm

The test program shows that the cable works fine on my old Packard Bell Pentium 60mhz with Windows 95, but that old PC is way too slow to run FMS 7.0.

My Dell P3 866mhz with Windows ME runs FMS 7.0 just fine with my Logictech Wingman Extreme joystick plugged into the USB port. But I can't get the PC or FMS to see the parallel port interface cable at all. I've been told that the parallel cable SHOULD work with Windows ME........but nobody has been able to verify for sure that a FMS parallel interface cable WILL work with Windows ME. Can anybody out there verify this one way or the other?

Do I need a different electronic circuit design for a parallel to Futaba buddy box tx interface cable to work with FMS 7.0?

Or does Windows ME deal with parallel ports differently than Windows 95?

Any ideas how to make FMS 7.0 work with a ME parallel port?

Thanks!

FMS and Windows ME
 

Hello,

I have always played it safe and ran Windows 95 or 98 with FMS. The word out in the "street" that the FMS will work also with ME, but what your telling me is that your having a hard time. I have a nice machine running XP and FMS does have support drivers for this Operating system. There are "PIC" type microprocessors that can attach to the COM port and work with FMS under Win ME/NT/XP you might want to search the internet. Those prices vary from about $ 35.99 to 75.00.

At this time there is no time line on when drivers are going to come out for that feature.
:(

Happy flying.
Raymond Cervantes [email protected] www.fmscable.com

FMS with Windows ME
 

I am running FMS on Windows 2000 with no problems apart from of course not being able to use the parallel port interface.

I use a device called RCJoy from Lew Engineering that convert my Futaba buddy cord to USB and then the operating system sees the transmitter as if it was a joystick.

See:

http://www.leweng.com/

for more information.

FMS with Windows ME
 

Thanks guys!
But I was really looking for a cheap parallel interface for FMS that I could build for a few bucks....or buy one already built for about 20 bucks.

Anybody out there know of a parallel to Futaba buddy box interface cable for FMS that works with Windows ME?

FMS with Windows ME
 

I recently built the Ken Hewitt interface for a buddy who's using Windows XP on a 1.9GHz machine. It works beautifully on both his machine and on my 633MHz Windows98 setup. (you can find pointers to Ken's page in the forums on the FMS hoepage.)

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?

Sound Blaster conflict finally solved!
 

Thanks to a gentleman in Japan, my problem was traced to an IRQ conflict between the SB16 Emulation mode and the parallel port.

From Contol Panel, System, Device Manager, I went to the "Creative Miscellaneous Devices". From there, I selected the "Creative SB16 Emulation" properties. Under the Settings tab, I chose NOT to allow LPT Interrupt Sharing.

Now I can fly FMS with full sound on my Dell P-III, 866mhz, with the Sound Blaster Live Value card, and running Windows ME. It works great!!!

Thanks Shinichiro!!!!!