Non standard FSUIPC offsets. How to find?

[Lissart]

Hello All!

Over the past 15 months or so I have been planning and executing the initial build of a Fokker 100 cockpit. My F100 is based aroung the Digital Aviation F100 and I have run into a bit of a problem which I had not foreseen. Therefore I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right diection to free the log jam?

It is regarding the read-outs for the physical 7 segment displays for the autopilot. This product does not use the standard FSUIPC offsets for such as V/S, Heading Select etc. and the list of custom offsets is not currently in the public domain. (I am trying to contact the developers but so far unsatisfactorily.) FSInvestigate or the logging facility in FSUIPC does not seem to be giving me what I'm after, or in any case anything I can understand! I believe that certain companies (PMDG I think?) have been reluctant to publish their offset lists for copyright reasons and I have reason to believe that there may be a similar issue with the DA Fokker, as the base software is being used for an unspecified professional application. Naturally, without the ability to read/write to the autopilot displays (and in the future other bits of the sim) the project will be seriously compromised. My questions therefore:

1/. Is it a correct assumption to assume that these complicated, modern add-ons do use their own custom offsets?
2/. If yes, do you know of any other ideas for accessing them?
3/. What interface would you suggest to physically connect and assign the 7 segment displays to the sim?
4/. If I am unable to discover the offsets addresses, are there any other ideas for completing the functionality of my autopilot? For example, I've considered using a hybrid between the DA autopilot for push buttons and knobs (no problems assigning all this...) and the FS standard autopilot for changing V/S, Altitude etc. where I can simply assign read/writes to the known FSUIPC addresses. Naturally enough the DA soft disables the MS autopilot (or over-rides it) so I can't see a way to integrate the two. Another idea was mini LCD screens behind the cut outs for the 7 segments with un-docked parts of the DA autopilot gauge. That should work but the LCDs would need to be super-mini!!

I hope you understand the nature of the problem, following my inevitably rather long-winded description! I shall be faced with a similar problem if I ever get to other bits of the sim like read-outs for the IRS etc. Annoyingly, other bits of this product do use the standard FSUIPC offsets.

Therefore any ideas gratefully considered. I would imagine that this is not an un-common problem for sim builders? (Now I see why I should have built a 737 and just bought an MCP ready done!!)

Regards,

Andy WILBY
(EGMH ATC)

[caKus]

Hi Andy,

There is no reason for an add-on to use the concept of FSUIPC offsets unless the conceptor wants to make public the access to the commands. Offset is a concept developped by P.Dowson in his product FSUIPC and there is absolutly no obligration for any add-on to be compatible with FSUIPC. So if the publisher of your add-on doesn't document any offset, it is probably because they don't exist.

Try to use the autopilot of FS. Or try to find an independant avionic software with published offsets.

Regards.
Patrick.