This page lists items that the ASCOM Initiative has made available for download. The ASCOM Platform is required for most of the drivers and other components. It contains a set of common interfaces, engines, and tools that are used to support most ASCOM drivers and other components. The Platform installer also contains a set of developer tools and documentation which may be optionally installed.
This is where you can get drivers for your astronomy instruments and devices. The links along the left side lead to the drivers for each device type.
If you don't find a driver for your device here, contact the manufacturer and inquire about availability of a driver. An increasing number of manufacturers are shipping drivers with their hardware. If they don't have one, suggest to them that they have one developed, as it will greatly enhance the value of their product. See the Advocacy page for some suggestions in this regard.
This is where you get updates to components that are included in the ASCOM Platform.
These components are not drivers; they are engines that are primarily of interest to developers. Included are a scriptable positional astronomy engine based on the USNO NOVAS Vector Astrometry package, an orbit engine that can generate ephemerides from orbital elements, and a scriptable deep sky catalog server with over 70,000 object names listed.
The most useful item here (under Additional Tools) is the Conformance Checker (written by Peter Simpson). This tool can be used to check many aspects of yor driver against the relevant ASCOM specification.
Also, be sure to periodically check the Platform Tools Updates section. It has updates to the developer tools that come with the ASCOM Platform such as .NET templates, installer generator scripts, etc.
Required for all drivers. The ASCOM platform 2008 (5.0) is ~5 megabytes in size. If updating from Platform 4.1 or earlier, do not uninstall!