In the mid 1990’s Suncom Technologies released a series of serious flight sticks aimed to compete head-on with Thrustmaster and CH.
Their F15e stick was modelled on the real joystick from the McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15E Strike Eagle fighter aircraft, and consisted of four models.
All four were 2-axis analogue sticks with 4 buttons, using the PC gameport. Additionally, some models had a keyboard passthrough (both PS/2 and AT) for injecting keystrokes, which is how they circumvented the gameport’s restrictions of only 4 buttons.
| Model | Description |
|---|---|
| Hawk | Castle and hat non-functional. Buttons are standard joystick buttons. |
| Raptor | Castle and hat emulate CH Flightstick Pro |
| Talon | Castle and hat support limited single keystroke programming directly on the stick. Buttons can also optionally send keystrokes. |
| Eagle | Fully programmable via software. The hat, castle, and (optionally) buttons can send multiple keystrokes, included chorded keystrokes, with the ability to control the keystrokes sent on press (key down) and also release (key up). |
There was also the Suncom SFS, which consisted of a similar F15 stick and a hands-on throttle, which together made a HOTAS.
In the late 1990’s I bought the top-of-the-range Eagle, which transformed my playing of LucasArt’s X-Wing series of games.
At some stage it got boxed up and put into storage. Fast forward 20 years and I recently got it out and tried to get it working again, and in doing so gathered as much software and drivers as I have been able to find, which I have retained.
First off, modern PCs don’t have gameports any more as they have been entirely superseded by USB. Also, many no longer have PS/2 keyboard ports either. Although PS/2 to USB adaptors do exist, I’ve had limited success with them.
And, also, the programming software was delivered on 3.5″ Floppy Disk. Fortunately I still had it.
I won’t bore you with the saga of my trials and tribulations of getting vintage computers running with versions of Windows old and new, but suffice to say that I successfully got the Suncom software running under FreeDOS and also under Windows 98SE
I then sold it on eBay for far less than I had hoped for.
Resources
Do you need a copy of the installation disc? Contact me if you do, and I could make it available.
