Simulate driving a 1970s tank with Raspberry Pi
Lots of you flagged up this video by Tom Scott, showcasing a 1970’s-era tank simulator that Switzerland used to train their military.
Why did they flag it up? Because, while the majority of the original simulator remains in tact, the computer powering everything was too old to find replacement parts for, so a Raspberry Pi was subbed in. Now visitors to the Swiss Military Museum, where the simulator lives, can drive a tank around a model village.
More about the tank simulator
Its proper name is the Panzer 68 driving simulator (FASIP). There are tonnes of brilliant photos, plus details about all the other upgrades made during the restoration process on the museum’s website. Shout out to museum staff Gerold Handschin, Michael Salathé, and René Demarmels, who did most of this work.
It took them several days to translate the original paper-based computer program into a modern language for the Raspberry Pi. The simulator’s camera, screen and some site lighting also needed replacing.
Simulators are *how* old?
I am an insufferable millennial who believes no useful technology could possibly have been invented before the year MSN Messenger launched, so I was surprised to see simulators employed in the 1970s to teach tank driving. I dug a little deeper (Ed: she googled it for 15 seconds) and found out how long simulations have been training people.
The first flight simulator was invented in (insert mind blown emoji) 1929?! Blue Box was revolutionary in enabling trainees to experience dangerous flying situations in a safe environment. It could “reproduce settings of various levels of complexity, which allows pilots with different levels of skills to achieve flight expertise.” These things work, people. I’m pretty sure I could successfully fly a fighter jet thanks to upwards of eight thousand hours spent playing WipEout in the early 2000s.
10 comments
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Paul Byford
See also Langham Dome, where anti-aircraft gunners were trained in WW2.
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker — post author
Googles…
Jongoleur
The tank trainer looks wonderful!
The flight simulator was mainly known as the “Link Trainer”, after its inventor and manufacturer. “Blue Box” was a US nickname.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Trainer#%22Blue_Box%22
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker — post author
Your actual knowledge trumps my Googling here 👍
Len Samuelson
At age 12 or 13, (1969 or 1970) my family visited The Franklin Institute (a museum of science and technology In Philadelphia Pennsylvania, USA), where they had a Link Trainer. After standing in an interminable line, I got a 2-minute lesson in humility and the skill of the pilots of that time… The “fighters” were far less responsive than I expected, and I could barely control it, much less shoot down the “enemy”. Much Much respect to the people who took on those roles then!!
thagrol
It wasn’t just tanks. Flight simulators used models and cameras back before they were computerised.
Rod Hart
I worked on the USAF Link C11c flight trainers back in early 60s. They were analog computers.
Kevin
Tom Scott did actually make a video featuring the blue box flight simulator. Sadly, no Raspberry Pi in that one (at least as far as I remember!)
mohamed Fezari
Interesting simulator more details can be found in https://www.festungsmuseum.ch/fasip/
Philip McGaw
Could we get more technical information about this please?
I would love to know more about the hardware interface and integration between the RPi and the simulator.