What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? [Tek 4132]

[Jon Elson]

On 01/18/2017 12:45 PM, geneb wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Jan 2017, Jon Elson wrote:
>
>
>
>> Wow, kind of surprised they were concerned about that.  
>> Especially a 727 sim, who the heck is still flying THOSE??
>>
> They're pretty common in South America and some 3rd world 
> countries.  I suspect it was 90% Boeing being a dick and 
> 10% because they could.
>
Well, the aviation community is just INSANE over liability.  
And, since the outfit that makes the wing marker lights gets 
sued many times when a light plane goes down, even though 
the cause was pilot error, engine failure, instrument 
failure, running out of fuel, etc. they STILL get sued.

So, I can imagine maybe some plane goes down, and they'd get 
sued because the pilot trained on an uncertified simulator 
that was cobbled together after a surplus purchase.

>> A friend of mine got 4 mirrors out of Vital II sims, and 
>> has one on a large X-Y display.  He wrote a sim program 
>> that ran on a Data General Nova clone (he built it 
>> himself, not a commercial clone). It is no longer 
>> working, some stuff went up in smoke last time he turned 
>> it on.  But, would be great to put a giant LCD monitor on 
>> those mirrors and use it with FlightGear.
>
> It would be interesting to try if nothing else.  The LCD 
> may not throw enough light out to make it readable in a 
> WAC.  Not sure.
It would work FINE!  His sim was a box, so you were in quite 
dark conditions.  Some LCDs can actually get pretty bright, 
and his CRT was not unusually bright.  So, I'm sure it would 
work fine.  These are SMALL mirrors, not for the giant 
wall-size displays, and direct-view.
So, the CRT is facing up, the mirror above it, and you just 
look into the mirror through about a 2' x 2' aperture.  
Perfect for a home simulator.

Jon