Folks,

PV1:

Many thanks for the help. I am determined to get both these sims to work again. I have long ago replaced the original smackw32.dll file for FCG so I know that is not it. Last night I re-loaded FCG and went into the configuration section thinking I might be able to do something there. I could configure my joystick OK but when I tried to get into the 3D configuration I got a total freeze up and had to re-boot. Perhaps I should just try a re-install? It could be that during installation the program will recognize the new ATI 64 card? I'll check out the websites first.

Dux:
The George Peppard and Ursula Undress film "Blue Max" was on TV this morning. Like me, it has its short comings yet I always enjoy watching that film. There are way too few combat aviation films to begin with and far too few about WW1, IMHO.

My big, inert gas filled, 10x50s with quick focus, wide angle (field 7 degrees, 367 ft at 1000 yds), coated optics, and BAK 4 prisms are hanging polished and ready on my gun rack behind me as I type. I also have a smaller 7x35 pair hanging there too. I have had these old glasses for over 30 years and only recently have I noticed that the 10x50s have a concealed tripod socket. Mine are Japanese and not the expensive German lenses. They have been more than adequate for my use.

Now my dad, being a captain in the merchant navy, had a set of glasses that could read the fine print on an insurance policy from five miles away. We used to ride the Chesapeake ferry and when in the middle out of sight of land to the naked eye, I could see the freckles on the backside of lady sunbathers on the beach. He traded those from a German ship berthed next to his for a case of American whiskey and a carton of Camels. Sadly those glasses were stolen along with his Colt .32 auto pistol after his heart attack aboard ship. He was air-lifted to the mainland and when his belongings were sent home those items were mysteriously missing.

Your description of the Merlin and the Peregrine falcon was of great interest to me. I will pass it on to C51. The Merlin made a fair kill. From what I've seen, hungry raptors do not always wait for their prey to stop struggling under their cruel talons before the savage plucking begins. That is the way of nature. A randomly dispassionate Nature ruled, at least until man came along. Before modern man arrived it was survival of the fittest. Now even the weakest of us may survive, at any cost, to other creatures or to the environment. Of all the world's creatures, man no longer adapts, he forces nature to adapt to him and that, methinks, will cost us dearly one day.

You have noticed the dangerous storms, earth quakes and volcanoes of late? We've had those from the beginning of time but I wonder if the earth is now trying to rid itself of its human parasites? It is no longer a symbiotic relationship if ever it was one between the earth and man. Or perhaps, just as our bodies try to rid us of a disease, perhaps the earth is treating us, due to our thoughtless nature, as if we are an annoying, perhaps deadly, growth that is ever spreading across its crust? Our days may be numbered my friend. Perhaps the world was not created just for us after all. Countless other species have come and gone before us. Our big brains, unless we use them, may not save us. The meek may indeed inherit the earth and sooner than we expect.

I recall a short story by Mark Twain from his long suppressed "Letters and Papers from Earth". In that story he has us picture an oyster squatting in the silt of a deep water. The oyster happily surveys all that is around him and imagines that everything was created just for him....