R-DAS (Rocket Data Acquisition System) Flight Computer PROS AND CONS Pros: Does everything you are ever likely to want in a piece of rocketry electronics, and then some more on top of that. Expandable with extra boards, such as igniter boards, telemetry modules and GPS modules. The Windows 95/98 software is very easy to use. Provides an audible and visual indication of peak altitude before the data has been downloaded. The onboard software is upgradeable. The manual is extremely detailed, whilst still managing to be easy to understand. Easy to add extra functionality for payloads via the expansion socket. The onboard buzzer/speaker is sufficiently loud to hear it from the ground when the R-DAS is installed high up in the payload bay of a 14 foot tall rocket! Cons: There are very few cons with the R-DAS, and I must admit, the only cons I can see, have more to do with my personal preferences with rocketry avionics, rather than any real cons. The 8051 CPU. I think a PIC CPU should have been used since this would have possibly enabled the the circuit board to have been slimmer - personally, I'd have used a PIC 16F84 and a bank of EEPROMs, but then again, that is personal preference, I suppose. The location of the on/off switch on the R-DAS, and the need to drill a hole in the rocket to flick the switch with a screwdriver or other similar object, is a bit cumbersome in my opinion. It may have been better to also include an extra connection on the board to allow an on-off switch to be plugged in and mounted on the airframe, but then again, that way leads down the same path as the IAX-96 with its wiring harness, which from what I have seen, can be cumbersome. Size - it would have been awesome if it had been slim enough to fit in a 38mm diameter tube, but then again, maybe that would be expecting a bit too much ! Software - I wish there were versions of the software for Linux, as well as a link to a Palmpilot, like the ALTACC. Not all of us are Windows lovers, and with Windows CE not having caught on, I think a Palmpilot version of the software would have been exceedingly useful.