*Warning, Off-Topic intro*
If you are somewhat like me you have, in the past, invested considerable time perhaps money pursuing innovated ideas that would (when omnivores fly) bring prosperity to you, the world and indeed the universe. Sadly this is not one of those ideas. However it may finally vindicate you for being a early adopter and purchasing the novel-but-nearly-useless Palm III (M505 or newer as well) PDA some eight years ago, well done.
[by the way; genetically, chimpanzees are 98.5 percent identical to humans, if you still don’t think you are somewhat like me, contact SETI,.. they are looking for you]
*End Off-Topic*
Firstly; what is a PDA? go away.
Secondly; what is DSKY? It is a clever acronym for Display and Keyboard which refers to an interface-device used during NASA’s Apollo project (Lunar Orbit/Landing & Exploration missions). This was the astronaut’s direct interface with the Command/Service Module & Lunar Module guidance computers (Apollo Guidance Computer AGC). The DSKY-interface is, more than ever, a paradox, both simple to use and required very little computational/logic resources. Of course, I could continue to write as if I had anything to do with it, or you can read this excellent wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
Thirdly; what is NASSP? It is the project name for the Orbiter 2005 (and now 2006) ‘Project Apollo’ add-on. NASSP is a full-scale, accurate Apollo flight simulator. I have been following the project for a few months now; since I rediscovered it after a resurgence of development activity which rapidly brought it into the realm of usefulness (well, as useful as a useless project can be, no offense). It couples honest Apollo systems emulation, flight characteristics, Apollo-era guidance & trajectory injection procedures with an insanely non-trivial real-time gravity-physics engine in a 3D virtual environment. If you are interested in Project Apollo for Orbiter check out http://nassp.sourceforge.net/. Or to look at Orbiter 2005 itself; http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html
Finally; What is this ‘PDA-DSKY for NASSP’; Currently it is a rough prototype that I quite literally threw together in a few hours (read; shoddily written) to explore the utility of having access to the guidance computer regardless of what ‘view’ was being rendered in the simulation environment. As the project became more advanced (read; resource heavy) it became less acceptable to toggle between panels during maneuvers (such as transposition-docking for LEM extraction and lunar decent/accent.
How does it work? Quite simply thankfully; I used a old Palm PDA, wrote a native (using code warrior) program that emulated the DSKY interface and passed along key presses and received register data directly from the simulation environment channels.
Future Development? A minor bit (although I have considered making a full-scale clone of the Apollo-era DSKY using seven segment displays and tactile buttons); There are a couple things I’d like to do before publishing the code/binaries.
1) Find a way to integrate I0 channel code into NASSP (as a plug-in module I would imagine)
2) Use some ‘real’ UI artwork instead of the neutral layout as is now.
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