Looking for advice on interface cards

[fsaviator]

I'm looking for advice from all you builders on the best way for me to proceed in regards to interfacing 7-segment displays as I build my radios and other displays (electronics, pressurization, etc)

My biggest factors:

1. Would like to avoid SIOC
2. I am using Win7 with Prosim737 and FSX and would prefer current or future prosim support
3. I have a registered version of FSUIPC
4. I use multiple PCs in my setup
5. it would be nice if it output 5V or more to also drive a backlight circuit.

Ideally, I would be able to drive up to ten 7-segment displays from one card, while also having the ability to interface buttons/encoders to the same interface. That would enable me to use one interface per radio for instance (10 numbers, two encoders, some pushbuttons and LEDs).

So... what are some of my options? Pokeys 56U is at the top of my list, but I'm concerned that I can only drive eight 7-segment displays.. that means that I would need two driver cards per radio.

Any others?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Warren

PS. you can't even begin to guess how long it took to type this with one (my left) hand!

[nricky]

Hi

Have to say again, the hardware from opencockpits is the best. Sioc is not that hard to learn, if i learned it anyone else can also. With posim you don't need to learn sioc, it is to easy making cockpit work wirh opencockpits.

Hope that i could help you in your decision.

Cheers Norbert

[fsaviator]

Hi Norbert...
I'm using SIOC now. The issue is that my RSP TQ uses SIOC and it is not very conducive to playing nicely with other scripts. It works now and after the time and money I've invested in it, I'm not messing with it.

Its so hard to get them to work together, that outside of rewriting the complete script every time i add a component (manually or via sioc-config) it jacks everything up. I spent days trying to get my CDUs to coexist with my TQ and finally I gave up and put them on a second computer.

Mind you, none of these issues are a failing of SIOC... just my lack of time to spend learning the ins and outs of it. I'm more inclined to use other hardware for most of my applications, resorting to SIOC only when necessary

Thanks again.

Warren