I would like to see the community come up with an open standard that would
kill off NMEA. It could stay purely ascii, be bi-directional, easy to use,
no binary mumbo-jumbo. It could be extensible like XML. Best of all it
would be free for everyone including manufacturers.
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Poit wrote in
00.119:

I would like to see the community come up with an open standard that
would kill off NMEA. It could stay purely ascii, be bi-directional,
easy to use, no binary mumbo-jumbo. It could be extensible like XML.
Best of all it would be free for everyone including manufacturers.
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Provider ----
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100,000+ newsgroups


We've had one for years. It's called TCP/IP and I'm using it to send you
this message. Every instrument SHOULD be placed on a STANDARD Ethernet bus
controlled by a DHCP-enabled router...with wifi would also be nice.

You'll never see it as long as naive boaters will pay through the nose for
NMEA's archaic nonsense. You'd have to get them to stop BUYING NMEA's
member's products to get their attention. That won't happen.

The cheapest of off-the-shelf routers creates 65,535 ports on each
instrument and will already handle up to 256 instruments, simultaneously
without all this 4800 baud nonsense with one talker. It's time to move
on...

We already have it. It's called Ethernet. Even if you have NMEA instruments,
you can use intelligent gateways that already exist. What problem?
Steve

"Poit" wrote in message
00.119...
I would like to see the community come up with an open standard that would
kill off NMEA. It could stay purely ascii, be bi-directional, easy to
use,
no binary mumbo-jumbo. It could be extensible like XML. Best of all it
would be free for everyone including manufacturers.
---- Posted via Pronews.com - Premium Corporate Usenet News
Provider ----
http://www.pronews.com offers corporate packages that have access to
100,000+ newsgroups

Steve Lusardi wrote:
We already have it. It's called Ethernet. Even if you have NMEA instruments,
you can use intelligent gateways that already exist. What problem?
Steve

"Poit" wrote in message
00.119...
I would like to see the community come up with an open standard that would
kill off NMEA. It could stay purely ascii, be bi-directional, easy to
use,
no binary mumbo-jumbo. It could be extensible like XML. Best of all it
would be free for everyone including manufacturers.
---- Posted via Pronews.com - Premium Corporate Usenet News
Provider ----
http://www.pronews.com offers corporate packages that have access to
100,000+ newsgroups


The problem is that applying these communication standards require
knowledge that most people don't have, so they stick to what is offered
and can interconnect without being a pro in data exchanges. If
protocols like Ethernet or TCP/IP are applicable to marine equipment it
would be wonderful to publish some installation procedures for people
who are ignorant of them.
Could this be done?
It sounds that NEMA instruments could communicate using the Ethernet
protocol. How do you do this?

It would be nice to be able to take a handheld gps, run ascii through a pic
and into a lcd without have to pay through the nose just for the
information to do this. Off the shelf stuff is fine for real applications
for your boat or plane. But why should we have to pay for the signal that
comes out of our units? Besides if the manufacturer did't have to pay
license fees themselves, maybe they would pass on the savings.
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In article ,
says...
offers corporate packages that have access to
100,000+ newsgroups


The problem is that applying these communication standards require
knowledge that most people don't have, so they stick to what is offered
and can interconnect without being a pro in data exchanges. If
protocols like Ethernet or TCP/IP are applicable to marine equipment it
would be wonderful to publish some installation procedures for people
who are ignorant of them.
Could this be done?
It sounds that NEMA instruments could communicate using the Ethernet
protocol. How do you do this?

You could use a standard RS232 to Ethernet interface. These usually have
virtual port software for the PC end that make them emulate a local
serial interface so maybe they would work with PC SW that expects a
local RS232 interface. You can also get RS232 to Ethernet devices with
optical isolation so these would meet the NMEA isolation requirements

I've also seen NMEA (single and multiplexers) to Ethernet boxes built
for the marine environment (i.e. +$$) but they are typically more
expensive than the wire only solution bringing the NMEA signal all the
way back on a single pair wire rather than via CAT5.

You can already get wireless connected instruments - but these typically
use their own standard. Why would an instrument manufacturer want to
adopt a new standard that didn't also lock-in the customer :-)

--
John W
To mail me replace the obvious with co.uk twice

I have no idea what you are lamenting. Have you tried to hook up a HD TV
lately? If this a general whine about complexity, perhaps you should
recognize that complexity goes hand in hand with capability. You rarely can
have one without the other. Please understand that ascii is a 7 bit digital
character set, not a transport standard and I have no idea what a pic is.
Just what payment are you referring to for plugging in a lcd or for that
matter, what maufacturing license are you referring to?
Steve

"Poit" wrote in message
00.119...
It would be nice to be able to take a handheld gps, run ascii through a
pic
and into a lcd without have to pay through the nose just for the
information to do this. Off the shelf stuff is fine for real applications
for your boat or plane. But why should we have to pay for the signal that
comes out of our units? Besides if the manufacturer did't have to pay
license fees themselves, maybe they would pass on the savings.
---- Posted via Pronews.com - Premium Corporate Usenet News
Provider ----
http://www.pronews.com offers corporate packages that have access to
100,000+ newsgroups

"Steve Lusardi" wrote in message
...
I have no idea what you are lamenting. Have you tried to hook up a HD TV
lately? If this a general whine about complexity, perhaps you should
recognize that complexity goes hand in hand with capability. You rarely can
have one without the other. Please understand that ascii is a 7 bit digital
character set, not a transport standard and I have no idea what a pic is.
Just what payment are you referring to for plugging in a lcd or for that
matter, what maufacturing license are you referring to?

He's also failing to grasp the TINY size of the marine electronics market.
Much like the naive fools that rant about how their boat isn't serviced like
their Honda.

There's not a large enough market, in TOTAL, of likely vessels to make cost
effective to cater to an EVEN SMALLER market of hobbyists.

Yes, it would be good if Maretron and others made a cheaper interface to
bridge NMEA2K. Their current USB unit is a bit pricey, but understandably
so given the size of the market.

I'm guessing by 'pic' he's thinking of the programmable chip of the same
name.

As for cheap LCDs, check out Lowrance and Garmin's options. They're
amazingly inexpensive compared to offerings from other vendors.

And Steve makes the excellent point of complexity and capability. I'll
reiterate the old rule: "Good, fast, cheap... pick two."

In article ,
Boeland wrote:

Steve Lusardi wrote:
We already have it. It's called Ethernet. Even if you have NMEA
instruments,
you can use intelligent gateways that already exist. What problem?
Steve

"Poit" wrote in message
00.119...
I would like to see the community come up with an open standard that would
kill off NMEA. It could stay purely ascii, be bi-directional, easy to
use,
no binary mumbo-jumbo. It could be extensible like XML. Best of all it
would be free for everyone including manufacturers.
---- Posted via Pronews.com - Premium Corporate Usenet News
Provider ----
http://www.pronews.com offers corporate packages that have access to
100,000+ newsgroups


The problem is that applying these communication standards require
knowledge that most people don't have, so they stick to what is offered
and can interconnect without being a pro in data exchanges. If
protocols like Ethernet or TCP/IP are applicable to marine equipment it
would be wonderful to publish some installation procedures for people
who are ignorant of them.
Could this be done?
It sounds that NEMA instruments could communicate using the Ethernet
protocol. How do you do this?

Ethernet is NOT a Protocol...... it is a Hardware Connection Standard.

TCP/IP IS a protocol..... that can run on Ethernet, or a lot of other
Hardware Connection Standards......

Nema018x is a Protocol, as well as specifing a Hardware Connection
Standard, that few OEM's actually pay attention to......

Nema2K is also a Protocol, with a specific Hardware Connection Standard,
that OEM's have to pay attention to......

One would NEED, to first have a Hardware Bridge that bridges the two
different Hardware Connection Standards. Then a Protocol Converter
that can translate between the two Protocols in question,
BiDirectionally....

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

Bruce in alaska wrote in news:fast-
:

One would NEED, to first have a Hardware Bridge that bridges the two
different Hardware Connection Standards. Then a Protocol Converter
that can translate between the two Protocols in question,
BiDirectionally....

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply



I have this silly dream of a wifi network you just plug any DHCP-enabled
device into 12V. The "marine router" connects to it and assigns it an
DHCP IP, then makes a connection to its port 12345 and presents it an
automatic broadcast of every data statement being received at the
router. In that data stream is the IP and ID data of every instrument
available. When you turn on the new Wind instrument, the router reports
to all connections the new wind instruments ID/IP and starts feeding the
wind data to the broadcast stream.

Even your handheld walkie talkie, pocket GPS, tablet computer, laptop,
etc., all connect to the boat's network. The walkie talkie can display
lat/long/wind/course/speed/distance to waypoint....any data that's
available...right on the walkie screen. The chart plotter in the hand
held GPS shows the same data as the one at the helm or on the nav
software on the computer.

It all exists with off-the-shelf hardware. Software for it exists or is
easily written in Linux, holding down cost by using an open source
operating system every manufacturer can use for free. All instruments
will talk with all other instruments WITHOUT this proprietary bull****
trying to force the boater to buy only our equipment we have now.

Any device can connect DIRECTLY to any other device on the network. The
computer can directly connect on a separate channel to the autopilot,
for instance. They can swap data separately from the public broadcast
channel.

Ethernet - TCP/IP can make this happen this month.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel with a bunch of "marine", read
that "proprietary" nonsense....