Larry W4CSC wrote:

"Tony MS" wrote in
:


http://www.thomasknauf.de/seatalk.htm


Thank you for the link. I didn't have that one....

Don'tcha just love it when they invert the data and try to obscure
everything just so noone's proprietary equipment will talk to each other
without paying extra for inter-operability punishments.

ETHERNET - ETHERNET - TCP/IP - TCP/IP - ETHERNET - ETHERNET.....SOONER THE
BETTER! Lots of talkers on every LAN, all with addressable control.

I lost my latest interrupt driven Seatalk viewer in a laptop crash and
as I was concentrating on getting timestamped realtime logging going so
I could work on a Windows version (I only have occasional access to the
Seatalk as it's on a yacht I crew on and the owner has a don't mess with
critical systems in the season policy :-) )

Its not too tough to crack and a week on board, mostly in a marina berth
(or maybe swinging at anchor would be better), with a laptop hooked up
as per Thomas Knauf's diagram, a C compiler, a driver that allows
direct serial port access and a berth full of programming books :-) will
let you get a multifunction repeater going.

It would be worth checking out something like a microcontroller
development kit that can easily bridge from the 9 bit protocol to PC USB
as the number of laptops with a true hardware serial port is rapidly
declining. http://www.chipcatalog.com/Cypress/CY7C64613.htm looks
interesting (8051 + USB, program loadable via USB from PC) and there are
others. Seatalk/NMEA 0183 programmable hub with USB monitoring, anyone?


--
Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk
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'Stingo' Albacore #1554 - 15' Early 60's, Uffa Fox designed,
All varnished hot moulded wooden racing dinghy.