Re: Futaba 14MZ at Tower...
By: Digital Man to Angus Mcleod on Thu Dec 09 2004 16:47:00
I honestly don't know of any reports that Windows CE (or any other embedded version of Windows) is inherently unstable. If you don't want to run WinCE because you hate M$, that's one thing, but all the embedded Windows devices I've developed for and/or owned, have been *at least* as stable as the embed Linux devices I've developed for and/or owned.
It probably isn't an issue anyway. The unit has two CPUs, one to run the interface (WinCE) and one to run the actual transmitter. I have no idea
what effect on functionality it would have if the OS crashed, but
hopefully the core functions of actually flying the plane would continue
to operate. IOW, hopefully the loss of the OS on the user-interface
wouldn't render the controls inpoerative.
And yeah, I hate M$ for being the minions of hell that they are and would prefer to use some other OS, but I am not fanatical about it. If the
tranny proves to be a good one (I'll let a few thousand other pilots test-drive and report back) then I wouldn't refuse one. If someone laid
the $2.2K on me. :-)
Actually, what I think is needed is to offload the majority of the user-interface to a PC application. You set up any particular model using
a graphical app. that allows you to connect inputs (like stick and switch position, clocks, battery level, etc) to processors (like mixers,
integrators, filters, delay-lines, etc) and on to outputs (like servos, display, speaker, etc). When you've done the setup, you should be able to test the functionality on a simulation of an aircraft, so you can see control-surface deflection and whatnot on a graphical representation of
the aircraft. When all is to your liking, you then "compile" the configuration into a low-level code that gets written to the transmitter. In-field programming should never be too complicated or complex, so a
great deal of the on-tranny user-interface can be eliminated.
This 14MZ has some really nice features, though.
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