On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 21:04:18 GMT, "Glen Wiley Wilson"
wrote:
As I told my beta testers, if you like it, tell your friends. If you
don't like it, tell me. :-)
Will do....(c;
As a guy with something to sell, the natural tendency is to believe
that everyone needs your product. Obviously not true. My original
thought was that I was writing something for people that already had
chartplotters and weren't interested in computer charting systems.
Just a pure data repeater function, in other words. That
functionality is mature, that is, pretty much working the way people
seem to want it to. They like having the great big display that you
can see easily from anywhere below, or even from the cockpit. The
flexibility of the display even let's them split the screen with some
other program and still see both of them. The logging feature seems
to be mature, as well.
My application is to notebooks and PDAs around the boat. Read
below...(c;
The other main feature, the networking support, may be a bit ahead of
its time. How may boats have LANs, after all? I do think that we'll
see a lot more of that on big boats in the near future, though. I'm
already astounded at how much interest handhelds (computers, not GPSs)
are generating. Maybe someday a cruise line will hire me to provide
networked displays for all their ships' public areas, or even
individual cabins. The master PC would capture position, speed, wind,
depth info, etc., and my program could forward it over a LAN to each
display PC, where my program could do its display thing and/or hand
the data off to a charting program. I could add custom displays like
how long till dinner, or whatever. How cool would that be?
Aha....Here we have a common interest!......
I'm toying with the idea of creating a WIRELESS network aboard the
boat (802.11b, probably). Integration to the NMEA network will be via
a converter, such as:
http://www.bb-elec.com/product.asp?s...ltsku=ethernet
This will allow me to redirect The Cap'n to the 802.11b port using
TCP/IP and a common router to the wireless LAN (I like Netgears). One
of the ports on the Netgear router is this converter which handles
TCP/IP from my DHCP server aboard and talks to a common RS-232 serial
port....I.E. NMEA 0183, 4800 baud 8/n/1 to the hard-wired NMEA
instruments already functional.
There's no reason The Cap'n or any NAV software cannot simply put out
its NMEA serial statements to a TCP/IP network, routed to the
converter device's IP, which converts bi-directional to it all the
NMEA data.....in and out of the simple NMEA network. The PDA in your
bunk.....the notebook sitting at the helm....or any other wireless
device, now becomes connected to the NMEA network many of us have
running. The Cap'n on the wireless notebook at the helm, connects
through the converter device on 192.168.0.4 and starts receiving and
processing network data, sending out NMEA instructions to the
autopilot listening to the NMEA network. No serial cables, no hard
wired crap dangling off the chart table and the wireless network on
2.4Ghz won't be susceptable to the 150W HF SSB RF like the serial
cables are, now.....
Wouldn't it be cool if ALL INSTRUMENTS were wireless devices to a
central shipboard router using STANDARD 802.11b protocols and TCP/IP.
God, I could use my HF radio on ANY frequency if I got the NMEA crap
off the wires....(c;
"To add our new wireless headsail roller furler to your networked
boat, simply plug it into 12VDC via the handy cable and it will log
itself onto your wireless router for control."
We'll even be able to watch the "Enroute Movies" from anywhere,
instead of just on the notebook at the chart table....(c;
http://www.videolan.org/
It's not "boat programs" so it's GPL freeware....(c;
Larry W4CSC
"Very funny, Scotty! Now, BEAM ME MY CLOTHES! KIRK OUT!"