초록 ▼

A mockup device interfaces directly with the keyboard port of a desktop (personal) computer and requires no additional or specialized adapter. A hardware mockup of an aircraft cockpit control panel, including instruments, switches and control yoke, includes an interface unit through which digital si

A mockup device interfaces directly with the keyboard port of a desktop (personal) computer and requires no additional or specialized adapter. A hardware mockup of an aircraft cockpit control panel, including instruments, switches and control yoke, includes an interface unit through which digital signals that replicate keystroke sequences employed by flight simulation application software are generated. The interface unit is coupled with and responds to the physical manipulation of the control elements of the cockpit control panel mockup, so that control panel manipulative action of the computer user ‘pilot’causes the generation and delivery of keystroke representative signals to the keyboard port of the computer. In response to these keystroke representative signals the flight simulation software that has been loaded into the computer controls the flight simulation display just as though the user were operating the system directly from the keyboard. However, because the interface unit produces the command sequences in response to the manipulation of dedicated control/switch elements corresponding to those on an actual cockpit control panel and at a signalling rate that far exceeds the manipulative keystroke action of the computer user, the flight simulation display on the computer monitor is presented effectively in near real time, thereby creating a more realistic simulation of flight conditions to the ‘pilot’user.

대표청구항 ▼

For use with a computer having a keyboard input port to which a control keyboard is coupled for inputting input commands generated by a computer user for controlling the operation of said computer to execute a flight simulation program, and a display monitor through which a visual presentation of a

For use with a computer having a keyboard input port to which a control keyboard is coupled for inputting input commands generated by a computer user for controlling the operation of said computer to execute a flight simulation program, and a display monitor through which a visual presentation of a result of the execution of said flight simulation program may be displayed to the computer user, an apparatus for enabling said computer to execute said flight simulation program for simulating the flight response of an aircraft in response to control commands therefor comprising: a control panel which effectively simulates a control console of an aircraft cockpit, the flight response of which aircraft is simulated by the execution of said flight simulation program, said control panel containing a plurality of input devices corresponding to input devices of the control console of said aircraft through which control commands for operating said aircraft are generated; first means, coupled with said input devices of said control panel, for generating signals representative of input commands, generateable by the operation of keys of said control keyboard, in accordance with said flight simulation program in response to the operation of input devices of said control panel; and second means, coupled with said first means and connectable to the keyboard input port of said computer, for coupling signals generated by said first means, in response to the operation of input devices of said control panel, to the keyboard input port of said computer.