T&T: : GPS and Compass

[Peter Bennett]

Wednesday, November 7, 2007, 1:52:12 PM, Arild wrote:

I have two serial<->USB adaptors - I think I bought one from London
Drigs, and one from The Source. A given USB port on my computer always
appears as the same COM port, regardless of which adaptor is used in
it, however they are COM4 and COM5.  I think it may be possible to
change the COM ports in Windows Device Manager, but as I can set my
programs to use these ports, I haven't had a reason to try.

AJ> REPLY
AJ> I guess I should have mentioned but forgot.
AJ> My compass deviation/calibration machine runs machine code.
AJ> I think the old Toshiba ran DOS 3.2 but the program boots from the floppy
AJ> and was written in C+ as a very tight fast machine language app.

That may be a problem - but it might run in a DOS/CommandLine window
in XP.  I wrote an NMEA logger program for DOS some years ago - I'll
have a try later tonight to see if it will work under XP.

AJ> If I repackage the whole thing including the 400hz 26V  gyro reference; the
AJ> processor would be a gutted laptop buried inside the guts. It would boot
AJ> from a BIOS chip specially programmed with this extra code added to the
AJ> basic BIOS. The idea being the machine has to run from a 12V DC cigarette
AJ> plug.

AJ> I would not need a keyboard unless a lot of frills was added like the
AJ> ability to generate a form wherein you enter Vessel Name, Owner, Date of
AJ> check/calibration, and a dotted line for the compass adjustor to sign off.
AJ> Only five keys are needed. ON OFF, STANDBY, LOG PRINT.

AJ> But those are frills we didn't bother with when I designed this compass
AJ> calibrator some 10 years ago.
AJ> I'm not a programmer! A friend who happens to be rather good and who can
AJ> write about 1000 lines of checked and verified code per day, knocked off
AJ> this little program in less than a hour.  There can't be more than a hundred
AJ> or so line of code. It isn't Windoze code bloat.

If you have the source code (or even if you don't, but have the specs
or requirements) I may be able to produce a stand-alone box for you.


AJ> REGARDS
AJ> Arild

-- 
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI    Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Ennos 31 "Honeycomb"
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter 
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca