Still enthusiastic about flight simulation or any other space game?
Bring back to life your beloved and indestructible Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feed Back Pro 1, or 3D Pro, or Precision Pro.
Technology is like nature: evolution is continuous and port games have almost disappear from our computers while the joysticks are still serviceable.
Nevertheless some good old things like the MS FFB Pro can survive.
If you still need or like to use your MS Sidewinder FFB Pro (game port connection) with your "USB ports only" new computer, there are these two possibilities allowing to get it performing fairly well:
ednet 5.1 PCI Sound Card with game port (ref 87008)
This sound card works well with all windows version including Windows 7, and is sold with W7 drivers (ednet).
You may use or deactivate the sound output of this PCI (using your motherboard sound output in that case). It will make no difference for the correct functioning of the joystick.
Small Drawback in Windows 7, there is no force Feed Back due to the lack of FFB drivers for W7 (although some trials were done to modify some XP drivers).
You can get Force Feed Back for flight simulators, if you use windows XP.
Grendel's adaptator for USB port
You may buy (although quite scarce by now), or built a user made USB port adaptater working perfectly well, thanks to Grendel.
The only drawback is the lack of Force Feed Back drivers, hence no FFB.
Forum of DescentBB, you will find how to buy one user-made adaptater:
http://www.descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?t=14791
and if you want to build one adaptater, here is the link :
http://code.google.com/p/sw3dprousb/
"MS OverDrive protocol to USB HID adapter
sw3dprousb (aka 3DP-Vert) is a device to connect a Microsoft SideWinder 3D Pro, 3D Pro Plus, Precision Pro, or Force Feedback Pro joystick as a generic USB HID joystick to a computer while retaining full functionallity (8-way hat, slider, and all buttons) at a high readout rate (333Hz) with low latency (< 2ms).
The current version bases on a Teensy 2.0 development board and is very easy to copy."
Happy Flights simulated or real ! 
