With robust operation and excellent software compatibility, All American Computers uses the LAVA SSerial-PCI as the serial interface for their “solid state” computers for flight simulation. (A solid state computer has solid state electronics which means no heated filaments, vacuum tubes, CPU, power supply cooling fans, spinning hard disk, motors, etc.).
The Hardware Problem
By its nature, a flight simulator is a physically unstable and dynamic environment. As well as handling tasks within the simulator, the flight simulator’s computer needs to interface with an external stationary server. In this setting, where jostling and jarring are intentional and even desirable, ordinary computer components are not good enough. Because of this, a flight simulator requires the use of only the most stable components. For All American, the LAVA SSerial-PCI effortlessly handles the stresses of the physical environment required in flight simulation.
The Software Problem
Initially, All American tried another brand of serial port card, but the card could not be made to work with the flight simulator’s software, which was written to run on a Linux Slackware distribution. After some time lost trying to fix the problem, All American went back to their distributor for another card.
The Solution
The distributor supplied a LAVA card that works flawlessly.
Chris Scott, of All American, says, “We tried other cards that didn’t work. LAVA’s chipset was the only one we tried that was fully compatible with Slackware.”
