Kira

And Jabo gets the prize! I happened to be upstate today, in an area that actually has decent stores with decent stuff for sale, and figured I'd pop in to a computer place just to see. Ended up leaving with an LG GH24 CDRW etc reader/writer multi-drive and ARMA 2 Reinforcements (British Armed Forces and PMC combi-pack). No more than 10 min of setup later, and I'd started ARMA 2 loading up successfully. It now runs without the slightest hiccup, OA currently uploading. Yee-Haw! And the like. Methinks it's going to be a late night! Thanks to all who posted advice/support/whathaveyou. Much appreciated!

I've done some research, and the results are not promising. I was thinking about going with the same drive, a LiteOn LH-20A1S, since this old one lasted almost four (five, three?) years without fail. First problem was that I couldn't seem to find it at "local(ish)" vendors. Second was that the "replacement", the newer version, with all but identical capabilities (LiteOn iHAP122, and iHAP422), had mixed reviews, but the cons seemed ugly. Basically that they had the same issue I'm having with mine (failure to recognize DVDs, CDs, anything at all), but right out of the box. Then again, it's a cheap drive, and one gets what one pays for. What are you all using, as a point of comparison?

Thanks, Pooka. I thought I'd had that, apparently just thinking about it, but didn't write it. I did install the program successfully on another computer, so the DVD is working just fine. Was in the process of moving it piece by piece to this one, and ended up deleting it manually. That computer runs Vista, which I'm not very familiar with. When I tried to reinstall, it told me the game was already installed (typical when you don't run the program's integrated uninstall feature), and setup crashed. There's got to be a bit or piece somewhere other than the folder I installed it to, I'd think, but not being familiar with Vista, I have no idea where to look, nor what such a file might be titled. Research on Vista tomorrow!

GRRRRR!!! Having just gotten Company of Heroes and looking forward to multiplay with a fellow DangerDog, I discovered that my DVD-RAM drive won't read this brand new disk. It won't even display that there's a disk in the drive after humming along "attempting" to read it. I did the usual, open/close drive several times trying to get it to auto-read, and manually opening it in My Computer, etc, but no luck. It won't even acknowledge the fact that there's a disk with anything on it in the drive for this disk; it's just blank, yet it asks if I want to write to disk... but doesn't show anything like I've come to expect from blank CDRWs in the imaging. Odder and odder. Then I had a think. I wondered "Why is it that my original Battlefield disks (5 if not closer to 10 years old) work fine, yet my ArmA 2 disks aren't recognized by this drive?" A quick search revealed that the Battlefield disks are CDs while the ArmA 2 disks are DVDs. It appears that my DVD drive has gotten stubborn, a little long in the tooth (old), or both, and refuses to read DVDs anymore. But that's not the case, either. IL2, LOMAC, Silent Hunter 4, and ArmA (the first one), all DVD disks, read just fine. So what's going on here? Truly selective reading, so it seems. Hummmmm.... I've attempted updating firmware, no luck. My next guess due to research is multiple media (movies) reading programs in conflict. This sounds possible, but I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to start looking for these programs, assuming I even have multiples (or any, for that matter) installed, which I doubt, as I don't recall installing any the last time I did a complete OS (Win XP) reinstall. I also pulled the manual connection to power and SATA data link to CPU, cleaned and replugged them in. No luck. After a chat with the few (where the heck are all you guys, anyway???) people on Saturday afternoon/evening coops, I narrowed down a far more likely issue, that, come to think of it, makes the most sense. Quite simply, the drive is old and has likely had a partial failure. It'll read some, but not all disks, weather CD or DVD, it's choice. Sounds like the only viable solution is a replacement DVD-CDRW drive. Thought I'd post here just in case anyone had any more ideas before I went that route. System Stats: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3.01GHz, 3.0 GB DDR2 RAM Win XP Home SP2 (ver 2002) Nvidia GT 240 DVD drive: Lite-On DVDRW LH-20A1S The drive is approximately 4 years old, but it gets moderate to heavy use. Thanks for any thoughts, suggestions, etc. Kira

Dunno, but the whole idea of an M-16 variant as a leg... Seriously, at least they could have picked a weapon that won't jam with more than a speck of dirt in the barrel. (Hellloo AK-47!) Sheesh. (How'd she fire that thing, anyway?)

FT, may I assume correctly that the numbers at the ends of the lines are the numbers of individual units involved? Seems to make sense, just not sure.

Very nice. Good to see such devotion to his airplane of choice, but I suppose after 30 years of restoration, that's a given!

While the title is not 100% politically correct, it fits in well with a teamspeak conversation of last night. A part of that conversation involved the fact that large portions of the population (anywhere, but particularly the urbanites) seem to have a major aversion to firearms in general. That, however, isn't the point of this thread. The point is that it was said during this conversation that some weapons are "scarier" than others, despite the fact that the "others" are, in reality, more dangerous (at least so far as stopping power is concerned, I'm not dismissing the tearing power of the 5.56x51mm round). Case in point, the discussion included the NATO 5.56x51mm firing M-16 (evil looking black gun, yet relatively small caliber) versus the 7.62x39mm SKS (far more hunting rifle looking but far more powerful, as well). The scarier part, in this case, seems to be (according to the author) due in large part to the fact that the person holding the firearm has the wrong equipment between their legs. A new book is out with, quote, "unsettling images of women and their firearms" unqote. I feel the need to add that I, personally, see very little unsettling about these pictures. Take the woman out, put a man in her place, and most people wouldn't even bat an eyelash at the images. Probably wouldn't even remember them, as such things are so commonplace, at least here in the States. Yes, I know, gun culture and all that. Chicks With Guns

Nice!

I'm not so sure the official DD welcome has been given. Hopefully I'm not stepping on any toes, but in any case: Have a beer and a sheep (rumor has it you get your very own!), and welcome aboard!

Agree to all of the above. I even have it in my sig over at Ubi forum; I think it's that important for people to know. (Or in my case "know", as it all goes out the window with the first sighting of an e/a...)

Glad to hear you got it sorted.

Wouldn't surprise me. Operation Farm Gate was one of the first uses of "how do we get around politics and get our guys into combat" in Vietnam. The answer was, in part, to use American piloted T-28s on attack missions. "Legal" because there was always a Vietnamese "student" riding back seat. We had one that lived at the airport where I went to flight school. Awesome airplane, but rather expensive to operate. I distinctly remember the owner towing it from the ramp to the hanger after one local airshow, rather than firing it up and taxing over.

Don't forget the super glue setting agent, not sure what the technical name is, "quickset", or somesuch. Also, one of those small candle-in-a-brass-tin candles comes in handy if you're into using heated sprue (that's the extra plastic, usually in stick form, from the mold), which can then be stretched and attached for radio antennas. This takes practice. It can also be done to put it on the model limp, and pass the candle under the "wire" to tighten it up, but you have to be really careful with that. I found that brushes were really less than ideal per what the finished product looked like (brush marks). I suspect an airbrush will give a much nicer finished look, though I've never used mine for lack of compressor/water trap, etc. Oh, a fume hood would be a good idea. Draw the fumes away so you don't breath them.

Wish mine had been that good at 9! (With Dad's help, of course!)

RJ asked: "God bless. Very sad news indeed Phantomkira - would you pass on my condolences to his family? I would be very grateful."

Apparently those Starfighters are something to see, or more to the point, hear. They have this signature display where they can run the engine (J79?) at a particular setting and get a one of a kind F-104 sound to it. Aircraft with two J-79s like the F-4 apparently can't get the unique sound. That'd be neat to see (hear). And the rest of the lineup is awesome too!

Salute, Jim. Thank you for being the person you were, and for bringing this group of like minded people together. If I may also add a salute to Helen, for being understanding of the amount of time spent with friends, some, never to meet physically. It takes a special kind of person to understand that. You were both fortunate to find each other. Fair winds and following seas. Adam

Interesting sales pitch for 250 year old Swedish house, built on the foundation of a Russian church dating from the 13th century. Link

"ArmA X Anniversary Edition" out soon (late summer, supposedly). It will include everything from a refurbished Operation Flashpoint (as "ArmA: Cold War Assault"), through the original ArmA, Queens Gambit, ArmA II, OA, and the British Forces and PMC addons for ArmA II. Link

Thanks, but no thanks, PropNut. I tried the X-45 years ago, or maybe it was the one before. Either way, I found the basic layout to be very uncomfortable. I know the FFB2 looks like heck, but it's quite comfortable, and as much as I use it, it's comfort I'm after. Jabo, that was my plan, until I discovered that there is no local electronics store that sells the things. I figure I can attempt a repair and get a new one. Nothing lost if the repair doesn't work. And I don't much expect it to given my history with electronic repairs. Brando, there are no snags or crushes, I've been very careful about that. Unfortunately, I can't get the stick to work at all now, and the way it was acting, having seen what that sort of connection looks like on the inside (on the headset), I'm almost certain that it's a wire break inside the USB plug. That and there have been a number of times that I haven't been slow or careful about removing it from the computer, so I may have simply weakened a wire that way. Good point about the PCB. I've never had the stick apart, as I've read that they're a bear to get back together... And you guys aren't going to believe this, but wiggled it at the PCB end, and it just started up again... Okay, it may well be a PCB connection issue. Hmmmmm.... I'll have to look at my angles with these wires, and see if I can get them straighter somehow. At the moment, I have the stick stored on top of the computer and must move it to my lap every time I want to fly. Perhaps a more permanent solution is in order.

Hey there PropNut, I was thinking along those lines. Thanks for the offer, I'll put it in reserve for now. Having it working again would be great, but at some point, I need to learn to do this stuff for myself, no offense. Having tried and failed with track IR is one thing, but I have to try first! It can't be all that difficult to get a new end and splice it one if I royally screw this up, which I don't plan on doing. As for the freetrack clip, I did, finally, get it working. As the saying goes, if all else fails, read the directions. I ran across something in the "frequently asked questions" or somesuch after deciding that if I had the artifacting dots problem, someone else would have too. It gave a simple "Adjust these two parameters", and it worked like a charm, moving it right into the three dots on a black background territory. Tracking in IL2 is on the fair side of good, but certainly better than a keyboard. I can fairly easily follow another aircraft, although it tends to get iffy out on the edges of extreme right and extreme left. Oddly, there's a "jumpy" problem in ArmA (one), where it seems to jitter between two magnifications, but that's definitely a secondary concern at the moment. I'm still learning how to use it effectively though. I'm a flyer first, ground pounder second. I'm kinda lost without my stick!

I've had issues with this thing for a while now, so I can't say this was completely unexpected. I'd be flying along, and the computer would make a "Bee-Boop" sound, at which point the stick would stop responding, force feedback would cease, and the green light on the base which indicates that it had a good connection would go out. I found that if I minimized the sim, then pulled the USB jack and plugged it in again, it would do the trick - most of the time. The way it was acting gives me the feeling that the USB jack on the stick has been on it's way out for a while now, and finally gave up. Forgot to mention, I'm also getting the "USB Device Not Recognized (One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. For assistance in solving this problem, click this message.)" message from the devices toolbar in the lower right next to the clock. I click, and the popup says "The location of the device is shown in bold type", yet nothing is displayed in the box provided. They, of course, recommend "reconnect the device. If it still doesn't work, replace the device". So here's the question: Having already tried and failed to repair a USB to board connection on a headset, I'm wondering if it's even possible to replace a USB jack on a joystick? My attempt, based on the idea that it's the USB jack itself that has failed (due to the intermittent failure before), and not the stick, would entail a new jack, cutting the old one off, and splicing the new one onto the wire to the joystick. This sounds perfectly reasonable, in theory, yet most of the USB cables I've come across are huge, not like the thin ones on this stick and the old headset. Thanks for the input. Either way, I plan to stop off at the local electronics store this afternoon and see what they have. Edit: No luck locally. Guess the internet it is for parts.

Nevermind the headset. Howzabout that transponder? And those radios! Woo hoo! Seriously, nice video. I'm glad they could actually find one to restore, considering the sheer numbers that were bulldozed into piles and burned after the war.

Welcome to the group, sir! Speaking of sheep, have a sheep!