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  • Momo Force steering wheel: The ultimate PC racing experience

Momo Force steering wheel: The ultimate PC racing experience

By Logitech
Johannesburg, 16 Jan 2002

PC peripherals manufacturer Logitech has teamed up with Momo, the Italian company that provides performance steering wheels for racing, performance and luxury cars to create an exclusive new PC racing replica wheel.

Known as the Special Edition Momo Force, the wheel will be available from selected retail outlets only. Like the many cars they adorn, these Momo wheels will be sold on an exclusive basis - and only a limited number are earmarked for SA.

"The Momo Force is bound to become a collector`s item," says Shawn Bezuidenhout, sales manager at Logitech South Africa. "It includes numerous premium features not previously seen on a PC wheel."

The bearing-mounted wheel is covered in hand-stitched leather and has a brushed aluminium centre-plate. The gear paddles are also solid steel. The pedals and foot-plate are aluminium.

Advanced internal mechanisms ensure Logitech`s best ever force feedback functions.

"These features are complemented by an exclusive Momo design, ensuring that this special limited edition device looks every bit as good as it plays," adds Bezuidenhout.

Technical background

From a technical perspective, the Logitech Momo Force wheel features a Momo-designed wheel covered in hand-stitched, genuine leather for excellence of grip, comfort and visual appeal.

The six programmable buttons are mounted on a thick centre-plate of brushed and anodized aluminium.

Solid steel paddle shifters provide serious racing performance and race-replica feel. The accelerator and brake pedals feature aluminium trim and non-skid treads, and are mounted on a large, weighted base that includes a dead-pedal and an aluminium-clad floorboard.

The internal mechanisms are also top quality. Four sets of steel ball bearings and substantial steel bracing ensure that the wheel is completely rigid and turns with the same smoothness as a real car. Logitech`s force feedback mechanism reproduces the game-based forces with precision, high-fidelity and strength.

A dual-clamping system holds the wheel console securely to the table. Enthusiasts who wish to permanently fix the wheel can use a bolt that mates with a metal-threaded hole on the underside of the wheel console. A template is included to aid in determining the proper location for drilling into the table or desk.

About force feedback

Force feedback is a sophisticated method for providing people with realistic tactile feedback from a PC or computer entertainment device. It has also been widely used for a number of years in medical, space and flight simulators to provide life-like training for students and professionals who make split-second decisions based not just on sight and sound, but also on their sense of touch.

This cutting-edge technology has been extended to PC gaming over the last five years, offering richer, more realistic and engaging play than the non-directional vibration feedback to which many gamers are accustomed.

Through the use of advanced software and electronics, force feedback can move a steering wheel or joystick as if the device were subject to real external forces.

Logitech force feedback products use Logitech-proprietary technologies, as well as certain TouchSense technologies licensed from Immersion Corporation.

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Logitech

Founded in 1981, Logitech designs, manufactures and markets human interface devices and software that link people to digital information and the Internet and enable them to work, play, learn and communicate more effectively in the digital world. The company`s product family includes Internet video cameras; mice, trackballs and keyboards; audio and telephony products; and interactive gaming controllers.

Momo

Momo was founded in the 1960s by racing driver Gianpiero Moretti. His passion for racing led him to design a special leather steering wheel for his car. Ferrari driver John Surtees fitted the same wheel to his car and went on to win the Formula One World Championship in 1964.

Momo was able to share in the glory and quickly signed Ferrari as its first client, providing Ferrari with wheels for all its racing cars. Momo rapidly became world leader in the design and supply of steering wheels and other products for luxury cars.

In 37 years of competition, Momo wheels have been in continuous use by the most successful drivers in all types of motor racing.

The Momo backed Ferrari 333 SP won both the Daytona 24-Hour (Gianpiero Moretti/ Didier Theys/ Arie Lyendyk/ Mauro Baldi) and the Sebring 12-Hour (Moretti/ Theys/ Baldi) races for sports prototype cars in 1998.

Current F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher has his Ferrari equipped with a Momo wheel.