IFI Critique

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

...The IFI system is showing it's age. There are better ways to do the whole system.... ...The only thing that allowed our team to survive this year was the KOP trans and frame and easy C. If things were any more complicated, we would have failed. I mean flat out not have been able to ship....

I think that giving teams access to gamepad-type controls would SAVE teams time, energy and money.

Logitech's Dual Action Gamepad would give teams access to 12 buttons, 4 analog channels on 2 X-Y joysticks, plus a POV button with 8 positions for $20 list price, and about $10 on eBay.

2 of these bad dads would allow more than half of teams to skip building a OI at all. They could just Velcro the OI & radio to a board, plug in to gamepads and be done.

Consider this in comparison to the work teams have to do to get access to 8 analog channels and 16 switches now.

I am not saying that we should just have a gamepad interface and all would be right with the world, I am just pointing out an example of a customer request that has been out there for many many years.

Nothing has been done about it for many reasons. Some of them make sense... ...I just don't think the arguments that it is impossible or illegal or too expensive are among them.

Joe J.