X-Mozilla-Keys:                                                                                 
Turrbie@aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 8/21/99 3:04:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
rotaryeng@earthlink.net writes:

 This is a break through price as I have paid as much as
 $300 for such an item. Avidyne and others are charging
 up to $10,000 for PC based cockpit LCD moving maps.
 Using this power supply you can build one for under $500
 using off-the-shelf mother boards and other
 plug in cards not counting the LCD itself.

Where are you going to get the SVGA compatible LCD and Software from?
Bruce Turrentine

Lots of software out there. FliteSoft, Free Flight, Stenbock,
Jeppeson several others that escape me at the moment plus
I wrote my own moving map software about five years ago.
See the ACRE NL web site for details. I also published
two articles in Kitplanes on the subject back in 1989
and 1990. 

A lot of the stuff
you see on commercial AC hardware  such as Archangel
and Avidyne is really off the shelf PC software.
For example look on page 20 in Sept 99 kit planes.
There is an ad for Sierra Flight Systems hardware.
The top screen shown in the ad is Free Flight software.
See the ACRE NL web site link list for Free Flight's 
web site.

There are a bunch of SVGA LCD's displays on the market. You can 
buy several that are made to look like a flat monitors. 
The trick is high brightness. You need at least 800 nits to see
it in sunlight. Your average notebook is not that bright.

One of our subscribers on here, Brent Regan, built a cute 
little high brightness system with built in CD reader that he 
sold the rights to NorthStar about six months or a year ago.
NorthStar is  now manufacturing it and selling it.

Paul Lamar
 
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