by Eric Brouwer » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:38 am
The reason why the simple serial/parallel interfaces are not supported above Win98, is that these operating systems were created to give the best performance/stability possible.
To be able to ensure stability, these OS does not allow third party access to devices. By blocking third party devices, the OS can make sure that there are no conflics, and also to ensure that the resources can not be used by more than one process at a time.
This is possibly the reason why FMS creators disabled these functions under certain operating systems. It would be bad programming practice to override the systems that guarantee the OS stability.
As far as I know, FMS is one of the only simulators where one can actually select from five different interface devices. Not even the top of the range RealFlight G2 comes close to FMS.
There are a lot of third party software that will allow a user to use the simple serial/parallel interfaces, but what would the reaction be if the operating system now keeps on craching when FMS is run.
Why not go for the PIC interface instead? They work great, and not very difficult to construck or buy.