Before Rheinmetall’s Lynx 120 existed, there was this tank simulator from the 1970s that is actually powered by a Raspberry Pi computer. It can be found at the Military Museum in Full, Switzerland and is the last known example worldwide. Just getting set up to use it requires one to wear a throat microphone and heaset before getting into the metal container.
After lowering yourself inside, you’ll find the wheels and other instruments that are supposed to mimic that of a real tank. A camera that sits above a toy map of sorts is linked to the portholes and moved around by a robotic arm of sorts. Everything you see is original, but the main computer had to be replaced by the Raspberry Pi since parts aren’t readily available. Why is there only one of these left? Well, most were built for actual training purposes and to be used by soldiers, so those have all been destroyed.
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At the Swiss Military Museum in Full, there’s the last remaining example of a 1970s tank-driving simulator. But there’s no virtual worlds here: it’s connected to a real camera and a real miniature model. In the 1980s, the Swiss Army had the idea to design and build tank simulators. But this was well before computer-generated images. They couldn’t create a virtual world. So instead they built a wonderful example of 70s analog technology” said Tom Scott.
