ASA On Top 9?

[Hamish Reid]

I realise it's only been released for a few days, but as I'm in the
market for a non-MS sim, and as I have an older version that works just
fine but needs updating so it can do real GPS, etc., does anyone have
anything to say one way or another about ASA's new On Top 9?

Thanks,

Hamish

[Paul kgyy]

I have Release 7, so can't directly tell you what you want to know.
There are 3 things I would like to see in a new release before
upgrading:
1. A Garmin-like gps: the gps in R7 is as primitive as they get.
2. A better power model for the Arrow. The existing power model is
way off (have to use 33" mp for cruise).
3. An option to better utilize the real estate on my 16:9 monitor by
moving the radio stack to the side so I don't have to call it up.

Apart from that, I like the system and use it regularly for IFR
practice.

[Peter Clark]

On 12 Feb 2007 07:07:03 -0800, "paul kgyy" >
wrote:

>I have Release 7, so can't directly tell you what you want to know.
>There are 3 things I would like to see in a new release before
>upgrading:
>1. A Garmin-like gps: the gps in R7 is as primitive as they get.

According to ASA's site they now have the RealityXP GNS430 and a 182
with G1000 option in v9. Course, since Windows Vista breaks the
RealityXP gauges (at least it does with FS9 - Microsoft has completely
munged IPC for 16bit applications) this is another package which will
break if one upgrades Windows. It'll be interesting to see if they
manage to make their stuff work with Vista. Looks like a lot of
rewriting is coming.

[Ron Natalie]

Peter Clark wrote:
]
>
> According to ASA's site they now have the RealityXP GNS430 and a 182
> with G1000 option in v9. Course, since Windows Vista breaks the
> RealityXP gauges (at least it does with FS9 - Microsoft has completely
> munged IPC for 16bit applications) this is another package which will
> break if one upgrades Windows. It'll be interesting to see if they
> manage to make their stuff work with Vista. Looks like a lot of
> rewriting is coming.

Don't hold your breath. They never got Version 7 to work reliably
on the direct X (or anything else on a NT or later OS). Customer
support is non-existant. My full price purchase of OnTop and IPTrainer
was the biggest collosal waste of money I have ever spent in aviation.
(Don't even get me started on the crap PREPWARE they sold me at the
same time, at least that was only $75 not the close to $500 I blew
on the rest of their crap). ASA has never responded (other than
with lies) to my complaints. I wouldn't go near them. Perhaps the
later versions are better, but they never offered them to me (nor
a refund) to the fact that the stuff they sold me never had a prayer
of working (and they knew that at the time, but the stooges they
had manning the booth at Oshkosh were all too happy, to lie and
say it would work).

[Hamish Reid]

In article om>,
"paul kgyy" > wrote:

> I have Release 7, so can't directly tell you what you want to know.
> There are 3 things I would like to see in a new release before
> upgrading:
> 1. A Garmin-like gps: the gps in R7 is as primitive as they get.
> 2. A better power model for the Arrow. The existing power model is
> way off (have to use 33" mp for cruise).
> 3. An option to better utilize the real estate on my 16:9 monitor by
> moving the radio stack to the side so I don't have to call it up.

I've got 7 as well, and was looking for much the same things you are.
Their web site claims a G1000-like PFD (in the 182), and GPS 430 stuff
in the others, which would make it worthwhile for me. I don't know about
the radio stack though -- that always felt clunky, but there's no sign
they've changed it...

> Apart from that, I like the system and use it regularly for IFR
> practice.

Yeah, me too...

Thanks,

Hamish

[Hamish Reid]

In article >,
Ron Natalie > wrote:

> Peter Clark wrote:
> ]
> >
> > According to ASA's site they now have the RealityXP GNS430 and a 182
> > with G1000 option in v9. Course, since Windows Vista breaks the
> > RealityXP gauges (at least it does with FS9 - Microsoft has completely
> > munged IPC for 16bit applications) this is another package which will
> > break if one upgrades Windows. It'll be interesting to see if they
> > manage to make their stuff work with Vista. Looks like a lot of
> > rewriting is coming.
>
> Don't hold your breath. They never got Version 7 to work reliably
> on the direct X (or anything else on a NT or later OS). Customer
> support is non-existant. My full price purchase of OnTop and IPTrainer
> was the biggest collosal waste of money I have ever spent in aviation.
> (Don't even get me started on the crap PREPWARE they sold me at the
> same time, at least that was only $75 not the close to $500 I blew
> on the rest of their crap). ASA has never responded (other than
> with lies) to my complaints. I wouldn't go near them. Perhaps the
> later versions are better, but they never offered them to me (nor
> a refund) to the fact that the stuff they sold me never had a prayer
> of working (and they knew that at the time, but the stooges they
> had manning the booth at Oshkosh were all too happy, to lie and
> say it would work).

On Top7 always worked flawlessly for me, and it was a great help for me
while getting my instrument rating, but then what would I know...

Hamish

[Bob Gardner]

Ron has had spectacularly bad luck with ASA products. Apparently no one else
has.

Bob Gardner

"Hamish Reid" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> Ron Natalie > wrote:
>
>> Peter Clark wrote:
>> ]
>> >
>> > According to ASA's site they now have the RealityXP GNS430 and a 182
>> > with G1000 option in v9. Course, since Windows Vista breaks the
>> > RealityXP gauges (at least it does with FS9 - Microsoft has completely
>> > munged IPC for 16bit applications) this is another package which will
>> > break if one upgrades Windows. It'll be interesting to see if they
>> > manage to make their stuff work with Vista. Looks like a lot of
>> > rewriting is coming.
>>
>> Don't hold your breath. They never got Version 7 to work reliably
>> on the direct X (or anything else on a NT or later OS). Customer
>> support is non-existant. My full price purchase of OnTop and IPTrainer
>> was the biggest collosal waste of money I have ever spent in aviation.
>> (Don't even get me started on the crap PREPWARE they sold me at the
>> same time, at least that was only $75 not the close to $500 I blew
>> on the rest of their crap). ASA has never responded (other than
>> with lies) to my complaints. I wouldn't go near them. Perhaps the
>> later versions are better, but they never offered them to me (nor
>> a refund) to the fact that the stuff they sold me never had a prayer
>> of working (and they knew that at the time, but the stooges they
>> had manning the booth at Oshkosh were all too happy, to lie and
>> say it would work).
>
> On Top7 always worked flawlessly for me, and it was a great help for me
> while getting my instrument rating, but then what would I know...
>
> Hamish

[Ron Natalie]

Bob Gardner wrote:
> Ron has had spectacularly bad luck with ASA products. Apparently no one else
> has.
>
> Bob Gardner
>
At the booth in Oshkosh I received a demo of On Top and purchased both
On Top and IP Trainer. I was told nothing special was required to run
these packages. I got home and found they didn't work. The one
useful information I ever got out of ASA Tech Support was:

Op Top and IP Trainer (of the version then current) did not support
Direct/X. This means there was no way the code would run on Windows
NT or later operating systems. Nearly all of my computers ran some
variant of these operating systems. This meant that I was out of
luck there. Margy did have a Windows 98 system on her desktop, so
I installed IP Trainer on that. It seemed to be extremely fragile
in it's operation which ASA support blamed on sound card
incompatibilities. I never got around to trying OnTop on the
Windows 98 system.

Further attempts to get any assistance out of ASA's software
department were futile. I was essentially, told sorry, you're
screwed. The product isn't advertised to work on the later
versions of windows. I was stuck with over $400 of useless
(to me at least software).

A year or so laster, ASA releases a patch to "provide" DirectX
support for the products. Of course, they don't bother to
actually tell me about this. I tried it on a couple of machines
but still never got it to work.

I'm not an idiot. I write high performance computer graphics
software for PC's for a living. Higher performance stuff than
what OnTop's demands are.

Despite numerous attempts to resolve this, nobody at ASA has bothered
to follow up other than Bob (who really is only related to the
company as they publish his books, which are quite good by the
way).

As for Prepware...the verseion I got at the same time as I purchased
the OnTop/IP Trainer worked as intended. It was just junk. The
image viewer was unusable. The images were scanned at a low res
and there was no way to zoom it. There was no way to measure
anything on the charts. As they didn't give you a copy of the
charts in any other form, it was kind of useless to study by.
Further annoyances were the fact that the entire help page for
the product was a single HTML file with links in it that didn't
go anywhere.

Compare that to Irwin Gleims stuff which has a very sophisticated
image viewer that allows you to zoom up and gives you enough tools
to actually measure things on the charts and answer the questions.

The general agreement (and Bob will admit to this) is that there
is no real tech support for the software at ASA. I'll continue
to point this out until ASA resolves the issue by either refunding
the money I wasted on this, or providing me with a version of the
software that actually runs on a modern machine (hopefully now
that the direct X issues have been fixed because nobody is
using Windows 98 or earlier seriously anymore).

=Ron

[Roger[_4_]]

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:43:56 -0800, Hamish Reid
> wrote:

>In article >,
> Ron Natalie > wrote:
>
>> Peter Clark wrote:
>> ]
>> >
>> > According to ASA's site they now have the RealityXP GNS430 and a 182
>> > with G1000 option in v9. Course, since Windows Vista breaks the
>> > RealityXP gauges (at least it does with FS9 - Microsoft has completely
>> > munged IPC for 16bit applications) this is another package which will
>> > break if one upgrades Windows. It'll be interesting to see if they
>> > manage to make their stuff work with Vista. Looks like a lot of
>> > rewriting is coming.
>>
>> Don't hold your breath. They never got Version 7 to work reliably
>> on the direct X (or anything else on a NT or later OS). Customer
>> support is non-existant. My full price purchase of OnTop and IPTrainer

I had some minor problems, talked to a tech and had them fixed in
minutes. The guy stayed on the phone and talked me through the steps
even though I was familiar with the process.

Currently using OnTop 8

>> was the biggest collosal waste of money I have ever spent in aviation.
>> (Don't even get me started on the crap PREPWARE they sold me at the
>> same time, at least that was only $75 not the close to $500 I blew
>> on the rest of their crap). ASA has never responded (other than
>> with lies) to my complaints. I wouldn't go near them. Perhaps the
>> later versions are better, but they never offered them to me (nor
>> a refund) to the fact that the stuff they sold me never had a prayer
>> of working (and they knew that at the time, but the stooges they
>> had manning the booth at Oshkosh were all too happy, to lie and
>> say it would work).
>
>On Top7 always worked flawlessly for me, and it was a great help for me
>while getting my instrument rating, but then what would I know...
>
> Hamish
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

[Roger[_4_]]

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:13:19 -0500, Ron Natalie >
wrote:

>Bob Gardner wrote:
>> Ron has had spectacularly bad luck with ASA products. Apparently no one else
>> has.
>>
>> Bob Gardner
>>
>At the booth in Oshkosh I received a demo of On Top and purchased both
>On Top and IP Trainer. I was told nothing special was required to run
>these packages. I got home and found they didn't work. The one
>useful information I ever got out of ASA Tech Support was:
>
>Op Top and IP Trainer (of the version then current) did not support
>Direct/X. This means there was no way the code would run on Windows
>NT or later operating systems. Nearly all of my computers ran some

Version 8 seems to run just fine on XP Pro. It was a bit picky about
calibrating in a specific order, but after that it worked just fine.

>I'm not an idiot. I write high performance computer graphics
>software for PC's for a living. Higher performance stuff than
>what OnTop's demands are.

My biggest problem in cases like these is (or was before I retired) my
field is CS, my degree is in CS and I think like a programmer and they
are trying to talke to the average user which can leave us both
confused.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

[Roger[_4_]]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 12:59:54 -0800, Hamish Reid
> wrote:

>I realise it's only been released for a few days, but as I'm in the
>market for a non-MS sim, and as I have an older version that works just
>fine but needs updating so it can do real GPS, etc., does anyone have
>anything to say one way or another about ASA's new On Top 9?

That does bring to mind the question as to what is the best PC based
IFR training sim. I have the rating so it does not have to be
certified unless of course we get lucky and all the FAA decides to let
us some that time for currency.

Currently I need more than currency. It's been so long since I flew
IFR It's a proficiency issue. I need to get out there in real life
and get proficient again, then take an IPC.

>
>Thanks,
>
> Hamish
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

[Ron Natalie]

Roger wrote:

>
> I had some minor problems, talked to a tech and had them fixed in
> minutes. The guy stayed on the phone and talked me through the steps
> even though I was familiar with the process.
>
> Currently using OnTop 8
>
This was an earlier version. I can't see throwing more good money
after bad. Of course if ASA offered an upgrade, I might change my
tune. But until then, my position is they let an either incompetent
or dishonest salesman sell me a package that corporately they knew
wasn't going to work, and offered no remedy to the fact that I blew
close to $500 on the pair of worthless packages.

[Frank Stutzman[_2_]]

Ron Natalie > wrote:
> tune. But until then, my position is they let an either incompetent
> or dishonest salesman sell me a package that corporately they knew
> wasn't going to work, and offered no remedy to the fact that I blew
> close to $500 on the pair of worthless packages.


Sounds an awful lot like Windows ME...

--
Frank Stutzman
Bonanza N494B "Hula Girl"
Hood River, OR (soon to be Boise, ID)

[Roger[_4_]]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 15:05:39 +0000 (UTC), Frank Stutzman
> wrote:

>Ron Natalie > wrote:
>> tune. But until then, my position is they let an either incompetent
>> or dishonest salesman sell me a package that corporately they knew
>> wasn't going to work, and offered no remedy to the fact that I blew
>> close to $500 on the pair of worthless packages.
>
>
>Sounds an awful lot like Windows ME...

I hate to say this, but I had very few problems with ME. <:-))
Besides, ME was a LOT cheaper than $500.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com