As far as I know wing commander 2 was released before thrustmaster joysticks were made, so wing commander 2 is unlikely to have thrustmaster support. I think Wing Commander 3 had a patch that added thrustmaster compatibility.

I just tested X-Wing and it didn't work, either. 93 floppy version. It doesn't seem to be detected at all in Windows 98, either.

Did you try to download any drivers for windows 98?

I just tried http://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=666633 TMSCOPE.EXE in MS-DOS which actually lets you select F-22 Pro in the menu there and none of the button presses or hat are recognized in there either -- just the joystick movement. Is it likely a faulty joystick?

The F-22 Pro (and its immediate predecessor, the F-16 FLCS) do not have any direct support from DOS games; they're just 4-button analog joysticks from a hardware presentation standpoint, and the rest are emulated keystrokes. (Yes, the SWF22 digital upgrade chips change that, but then it'd be completely nonfunctional in DOS.)

It's an important distinction from the earlier Thrustmaster FCS, which needed the throttle axis for implementing the hat switch and had no keyboard emulation; that's what the "Thrustmaster" mode in older DOS games calls for and why the WCS throttle defaults to keyboard emulation. The Mark I WCS only supports keyboard emulation; the Mark II can function in analog or digital modes, and it's capable of making the FCS hat switch emulate keystrokes as well.

The good news is that unlike its predecessors, the F-22 Pro lets you map the analog gameport buttons anywhere you want. The bad news is that you're gonna have to learn how to download a profile to it, since it's programmed in firmware, and you CANNOT do this through any NT-derived OS, only DOS/Win9x.

I actually quite like classic Thrustmaster programming, as it's simply a matter of editing plain text files with a simple syntax and downloading them to the stick or throttle, but I'm also spoiled by Fox Two Pro/Foxy, which is Windows-based and adds a robust GUI with helpful utilities and syntax highlighting. TM even liked it so much as to make it the official programming utility for the later HOTAS Cougar.

Ok, I found F22 Drivers/Control Center and installed it. However, the installation guide readme is confusing the crap out of me.

Locate the keyboard port on your computer and unplug the keyboard.
Plug the F22's keyboard connector into the computer's keyboard port.
Note:If your keyboard uses the larger 5-pin connectors for the keyboard, a pair of adapters will be needed for converting PS/2-style to 5-pin connectors.

...what?! There are two cables that come out of the joystick, the 15-pin game port connector and a 5-pin midi looking cable. The note says I would need an adapter if my keyboard used a larger 5-pin but did it really mean to say the opposite. Is this larger midi looking cable actually a pre-PS/2 keyboard input... and the female 5 pin port on the joystick itself?

I assumed the 5-pin cable was for connecting another device for HOTAS. Are these actually AT keyboard ports/cables?

What was the timeline for AT keyboards to PS/2 ?

Yes, it is actually an AT keyboard cable. The TM (and older Saitek sticks) used the keyboard for the rest of the button presses the game port couldn't support. You plug your keyboard into the stick, and then the stick to the keyboard port on the computer. As for the timeline for the AT to PS/2 port switch, I'm not sure, but the ATX standard wasn't adopted until the mid-late 90s, so all those custom machines were still using AT or Baby AT.

Not sure if this is the right topic to post my question, but I hope you guys can help me...

I recently picked up a F-22 Pro to use on my Pentium III system, but unfortunately the only version of Thrustmaster's command & control center I can find online is too old to use on my P III cause it immediately gives a runtime 200 error when using any of the F22 related files. (F22load.exe etc.) I found out on Bob Church's "stickworks" site that I need (at least) version 2.09 of the F22 related files, unfortunately the Thrustmaster resource center site is no longer available and I can't find the files anywhere online.

Does anyone still have the Pentium II/III version of the F22 Pro files of c&cc?

The f22rt200.exe download for "New loader executables, compatible with Pentium II (135258 bytes)" is archived and works: https://web.archive.org/web/20010306191145/ht … 80/loaders.html
Lucky, because the download is dead for all the other models.

Scratch that noise - Thrustmaster's website may not be of help, but they do still have all of their old stuff on their official FTP servers! ftp://ftp.thrustmaster.com/accessories/pc/

Awesome finds! Thanks, firage!