VOGONS


First post, by infiniteclouds

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I just bought one on e-bay and while the the stick itself is automatically detected and can steer around in Wing Commander 2 none of the button presses seem to register. I can't seem to find a manual or software/drivers online anywhere for it -- but I don't believe DOS joysticks need drivers.

Has anyone here owned this stick? I carefully looked it over to see if there was some switch I was missing, but there isn't. I'm going to install X-Wing and see if it works there.

I'm using 2 sound cards -- an AWE64 and SBPro2. I'm using the game port from the AWE64 but never took any steps to disable the SBPro 2s port... do I need to do that? A jumper? Edit: I just checked and the enable joystick jumper is not the SB Pro2 so that shouldn't be the issue. I haven't had any issues using a gravis gamepad with the set up as is.

Last edited by infiniteclouds on 2017-06-11, 01:13. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 1 of 14, by Baoran

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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.

Reply 2 of 14, by infiniteclouds

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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.

Reply 3 of 14, by Baoran

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Did you try to download any drivers for windows 98?

Reply 4 of 14, by infiniteclouds

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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?

Last edited by infiniteclouds on 2017-06-11, 02:22. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 5 of 14, by NamelessPlayer

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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.

Reply 6 of 14, by infiniteclouds

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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 ?

Reply 7 of 14, by Van Slanzar de Fanel

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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.

Chris/Van/Sober.
You have found a well. You may think that there is something to it, but in fact it is just an ordinary well.

Reply 8 of 14, by Daaf

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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?

Reply 9 of 14, by firage

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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/

My big-red-switch 486

Reply 10 of 14, by Daaf

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Awesome finds! Thanks, firage!

Reply 11 of 14, by janskjaer

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firage wrote on 2017-11-06, 20:19:

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/

Unfortunately, the archive of the above linked Thrustmaster fan site has only managed to capture the files for the F-22 Pro. The links for the TQS and the FLCS have not been archived.
The Thrustmaster FTP site is no longer available, and with it, all of their files library has gone.
Are there any other resources where I can find all the thrustware, C&CC and utilities for the FLCS and TQS, which include the revisions for Pentium II and Pentium III support?

DELL Dimension XPS M200s
:Intel P1 MMX 200MHz
:64MB EDO
:DOS 6.22/Win95b
:Matrox Millenium II + m3D (PowerVR PCX2)
Chaintech 7VJL Apogee
:AMD AthlonXP 2700+
:512MB DDR
:Win98SE/2000 SP4
:3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP

Reply 13 of 14, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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janskjaer wrote on 2026-06-06, 04:29:
Unfortunately, the archive of the above linked Thrustmaster fan site has only managed to capture the files for the F-22 Pro. Th […]
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firage wrote on 2017-11-06, 20:19:

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/

Unfortunately, the archive of the above linked Thrustmaster fan site has only managed to capture the files for the F-22 Pro. The links for the TQS and the FLCS have not been archived.
The Thrustmaster FTP site is no longer available, and with it, all of their files library has gone.
Are there any other resources where I can find all the thrustware, C&CC and utilities for the FLCS and TQS, which include the revisions for Pentium II and Pentium III support?

vetz wrote on 2026-06-06, 06:42:

Have you checked here https://www.flyfoxy.com/thrust.html?

Try the Thrustmaster ftp archive... https://web.archive.org/web/*/ftp://ftp.thrus … ccessories/pc/*

Reply 14 of 14, by janskjaer

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vetz wrote on 2026-06-06, 06:42:

Have you checked here https://www.flyfoxy.com/thrust.html?

Thanks @vetz. Coincidentally, I had by chance dropped on what I believe to be an archived pre-cursor to the flyfoxy site just yesterday - called FoxTwo. It has some of the same TM loader software and the page layout looks very familiar. Flyfoxy did not show up in an online lexical search for "Thrustmaster Thrustware" "C&CC", "utilities" and the like, so thanks for the link.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2026-06-06, 07:00:

Yes, I had already tried the archived Thrustmaster FTP location for the original files, but sadly, nothing had been retained. It looks like that was the original location for those files up until around the end of 1999.
I did check out the FTP directory you provided and it looks like from 2001 onwards, Thrustmaster had re-structured the locations for those files on the FTP server. I can see they are now under the /accessories/pc sub-directory. Thanks for pointing that out.

DELL Dimension XPS M200s
:Intel P1 MMX 200MHz
:64MB EDO
:DOS 6.22/Win95b
:Matrox Millenium II + m3D (PowerVR PCX2)
Chaintech 7VJL Apogee
:AMD AthlonXP 2700+
:512MB DDR
:Win98SE/2000 SP4
:3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP