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RIKA on a Mac

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 11:34 pm
by lucho
Does anyone use a RIKA with a Mac Laptop? I would assume one would have to use a Windows emulator.

I would like to know if I can use the Mac laptop I have or would I have to buy a PC laptop.

Thanks

Rika on a Mac

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 3:58 pm
by Sawyer
lucho-
This will be one of those posts where the poster doesn't really answer the question directly.... any way, I tried that with my Noptel, which uses a serial port. Having none on my Powerbook, I rigged a serial to USB adapter, and then ran it with Virtual PC. It worked, but was so slow it was 100% worthless.

The issue is data transfer speed-- it needs to be up there for any of the training simulators to work, I think. That adapter slowed it down a bunch, and Virtual PC made it even worse. Until Rika, Scatt, Noptel or Curt ports their software to Mac OS X, we're out of luck. I run my Noptel on an old Compaq laptop-- wich I use for that and nothing else. It works fine, other than the inherent bugginess of Windows. You can find used PC laptops for a few hundred bucks, so you'll have to factor that into your purchase as I did.

The pendulum is swinging to Apple's favor here in the states, but I don't know how much of that is rubbing off on to the niche players in the International market. In other words, we can always hope that one of the above mentioned makers will see the value of making their software Mac-compatible, but I'm not holding my breath.

I hope this helps. The bottom line is that I don't think you'll be able to make it work to your satisfaction.

Regards,

Larry Sawyer