thunder wrote in
t:

On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:05:34 -0400, Armond Perretta wrote:

I have Capn 8.3 running with several GPS units that can be switched
to
provide nav data. This setup works just fine and has for a very long
time. I just loaded Offshore Navigator Light and SeaClear II for the
fun
of it, and it happens that neither program can "see" the GPS data. I
am
using a standard USB-to-serial cable and I have tried just about
every
combination of port and speed and GPS interface setting on 3 separate
GPS units, but so far no go. Meanwhile the Capn 8.3 can see anything
I
feed it. Any ideas?

The USB-to-serial cable *might* have something to do with it. The USB
standard does not include a GPS device, so a proprietary driver is
needed. Capn probably provides them, perhaps, ONL and SeaClear
don't.
If you are familiar with telnet, you could telnet the port and see
what,
if anything, is being transmitted.

Excellent point. The Cap'n DOES have a USB serial port emulator/driver
that I'm sure is STILL resident on his computer even if The Cap'n isn't
booted. So, The Cap'n's driver is stealing the data away from the port,
no matter what program's running, making a data black hole that these
other programs have no way of accessing from the proprietary driver....

The only way he'd get to see it is if he completely UNinstalled The
Cap'n before installing one of these other crapware freebies, then he'd
probably have GPS info off the open USB port that's not open now with
the Cap'n's driver holding it close.

If The Cap'n works great DON'T SCREW IT UP! Use it to go sailing!

Trying to run several nav programs on that machine is SURE to screw it
up with all the system tinkering they have to go through to get
antiquated NMEA serial data through a computer that doesn't have ports
for it any more.....

--
Larry