You guys are lucky, we've never had ANYTHING like that up here in Canada. I just had to make due with putting a motorcycle helmet on and pretending

Time? Code Monkey has no shortage of work.

It is theoretically plausible I suppose (inter process communication?), though I imagine it won't really be considered until the game is fully working. That or one of the code monkeys decides to set up one of these cockpit like things. 

I swear I remeber playing around in some sim pods, not battletech, but something, up at Ontario Place when I lived up there.

I have found an arcade at the Gold Coast that has some Tesla pods, they are trying to unload them. They say the licensing costs too much and that the technicians don't know anything about apple macs and can't fix them.

I'm going to ask how much they might be willing to sell one to me for, perhaps I might buy one if it isn't too expensive.

About this licensing that BHawthorne mentioned. Are you saying I can't go and buy a machine and play BattleTech: Firestorm or Red Planet at home for free

Some more information:
The pods look quite old and run down. They mentioned that the systems DO have macs in them, so they are an old version or something.
All they have said to me about the game was- "the game they used to play was called battletech or mech warrior".
I'm going to go see them in a week or so perhaps. I'll have another look and ask some more questions.

None of the pods are actually running at the arcade, all are off and shoved in a corner. 

I wonder if I could mod the system to work with my pc in some way. (MWLL+ Tesla Pod?) I have very limited electronics skill though, I  doubt I could do anything with a machine... I suppose I can learn.

Any information you can provide would be hugely appreciated

Rare maybe, but is that a good thing? Is this version any good? What makes it different compared to others?

Rare:
1. Hard to find replacement parts for.
2. Another reason for a higher price.
3. Wasn't produced much due to being a bad design.
4. Hard to get help from other owners due to little knowledge of this design.

Please don't tell me I'm right 

first off, are these round pods or square pods???  one look at the exterior will tell that answer.

second, neither of them had Macs IN the pods, a mac was only used as the console to launch the missions for the pods.  If the pods are square... they "may" be Amiga computers running the pods. (most people have no idea what they look like at first sight.)  At that point... harder to find parts for computer and pod controls.

third, the pods always looked old and run down.  They were "weathered" with paint when they were new.  But... if you see stuff that looks broken off, then it really is broken off.  they were weathered and dirty looking, but never looked like they were "broken".  (unfortunately if they were just stored in a corner, they really MAY be dirty. 

For the best information on the tech of the older pods, check in with www.virtualworld.com the makers of these pods. Your computer may run software other than what came with the pods, but the software is not configured to run the dual screen and digital readouts square pods) or the two main screens and 5 MFD screens (round pods) and all of the associated buttons and controls that are exclusive to the VWE pods. So at best, without doing some major rewiring, all you "might" get is the main screen to work and a lot of dead instruments in a really cool desk if you don't run the intended software.

To run MWLL and to ahve everything functional in the pod(s), there would have to be a (probably substantial) rewrite to make it work with all of the MFDs and buttons in either pod. (although, if someone on the MWLL dev team would like to discuss that possibility, I'm sure we would be MORE than willing to share ideas.    )