I have been reading the SDK and plan on developing a hardware
version of the INS. The SDK is really good
expcept I dont see provisions for seeing what is displayed on the
unit. Upon further searching in the CIVASDK.h i see a struct for both
the display and the "to from" display as well. See below.

From the CIVASDK.h:

typedef  struct cdu_data_display_tag {

          char  szString [ 8 ];      // Display text (NULL terminated)
          int   iIconId;             // N/S or E/W icons (0=N/E, 1=S/W)
          int   iUpperDot1;          // first upper "dot" *RIGHTMOST*
          int   iUpperDot2;          // second upper "dot"
          int   iLowerDot1;          // first lower "dot" *RIGHTMOST*
          int   iLowerDot2;          // second lower "dot"

       } INSDATADSP, * PINSDATADSP;

//
// FromTo Display Descriptor
//
typedef  struct cdu_fromto_display_tag {

          char  szString [ 3 ];      // 2 chars + NULL Term.

       } INSFTDSP, * PINSFTDSP;


Problem is there is no example of how to call this up. Just wondering if
you can tell me how to get this data?

I actually already have build some circuits on a breadboard. Which includes MCP panel (altitude) so far and have it communicating through RS232 with flightsim. The circuit is comprised of an ATMEGA AVR micoprocessor and rotary encoder (knob) to change the altitude. I plan on switching to USB instead of rs232 as it is mainstream now. I just started out with rs232 because it was simple to program. This has been designed with the maddog md-80. I also enjoy the FSLabs concorde using your civaINS and would love to have an external INS. I plan on building a full hardware model and would love to run you software to drive it. SO if you could help me that would be great. One way I could drive it is to make a program that looks on the screen and converts what is seen on the display but that is a bit of a  pain in the butt and the CDU would have to be display on the screen for it too work. First thing i will do is make a small model on a breadboard I would be happy to show you as i get it together. ANY help would be great!

Hi,
may I jump in as well ?

I am working (very slowly) on a hardware version as well.
The system is based on SIOC (Opencockpits.com). Via them you can get all sorts of hardware interfaces (i.e. IO cards for the push buttons and the switches and also 7-Segment cards to drive the outputs.
Basically it should be rather straight forward as long as the CIVA data (error codes, calculated values etc) could somehow be obtained.

Regards,
Florian