Owner`s manual

1 INTRODUCTION

1.4 System description

The various subsystems of Altair and their relation to external devices are described below:

• Computer The computer is an Intel XScale CPU running XCSoar

software. The software is highly conﬁgurable, customisable,

and upgradeable.

• Display A large full color sunlight-readable display with automatic

brightness adjustment.

• Buttons Nine general purpose buttons are located along the bottom

and left side of the display. A tenth button, at the top left

corner of the display, acts as a power switch and

cancel/escape button.

• Rotary knob A dual rotary knob with button press is used for data entry

and user interface navigation.

• Power supply Power is drawn from an external 12V power source. The

PRO version also has a backup battery.

• Serial peripherals A variety of serial devices can be connected to Altair

(Optional):

- GPS/Logger Navigation functions require at least one GPS source.

This can come from any GPS device with the common

NMEA output. The GPS input device may be an IGC

logger.

- Air data instrument When connected to an intelligent variometer such as

Vega, Altair reads and displays data from the instrument,

and Altair can be used for conﬁguration or control of the

instrument’s modes and settings.

- FLARM When connected to a FLARM device, information about

FLARM trafﬁc and warnings is presented.

3 Altair Owner’s Manual • ALTAIR-EN