Introduction
SC&T International, Inc.
developed one of the first force feedback wheels
on the market with help from the gurus at Immersion.
The wheel is designed to create an as close to true
racing environment as possible by simulating bumps,
jolts, skids, road conditions, and my favorite,
crashes. If you've ever played an arcade racing
game (let's take Sega's SuperGT for example) you
know what the concept is.. you hit something, the
wheel hits back. The harder you hit the wall, the
bigger the jolt the wheel delivers.
Installation
If the installation had gone
smoother I would have overlooked the fact that the
wheel takes up a huge amount of desktop space. On
my desk there was no way I could fit this wheel
and a keyboard at the same time -with enough room
to use both anyway. After assembling the mounting
kit as shown in the installation manual, I mounted
the wheel in place.
I was sure the installation
would come to the next point.. an AC adapter. This
probably would not be a problem for most people...
but for me it meant chaos. With two sets of speakers,
an external modem, a printer, a scanner, the computer,
and a monitor... I ran out of outlets. Eventually
I worked out a compromise and removed one of the
sets of speakers.
Being a strong advocate of
my trusty Microsoft serial mouse, I was pretty mad
to have to remove it and install a PS/2 mouse simply
because this wheel uses a serial port. I guess they
didn't consider people like me who have a serial
mouse and external modem...
Features
After the rough installation,
it was nice to examine the incredible features of
the wheel.
