Ed how do you feel about booting your notebook with
a DOS 5.0 boot disk I can send you? Omega sent me a lot
of DOS software. Much easier to use than windows stuff.
Also way faster. Furthermore I can knock out very small
comm programs in Quick BASIC lickity split.
In fact we can start with this one that reads your NEMA 0183
GPS and saves the data to hard disk every 2 seconds.
Will work with any GPS that has a RS232 interface.
This gives you an exact history of where you have flown
down to 15 feet and what heading to the nearest tenth of a degree
you used and how fast you went to the nearest tenth of a knot.. not
to mention the Zulu time to the nearest nano second.
AND a crude altitude reading no less.
Will also measure take off acceleration.
We can modify this to read the temps and store them along
with the GPS data.
Totally stand alone and automatic. You start the program when you
take off and stop it after you land. No buttons to push.
Generates an ASCII file on your hard disk that can be read
by almost anything.
Paul Lamar
No problem, Paul
I started off on DOS and only grudgling went to Windows, so probably
have not forgotten it all. The Laptop does have a DOS window but that may
be an emulation rather than true DOS - I just truly do not know. Actually,
I used DOS with my HALTECH system on the LapTop so it hasn't bee that long
ago. I think it would be nice to record the other data as well. I just
recently got a panel holder for my Garmin195 that provides for the NEMA
output (going to use it on my wing leveler design). I have not yet
installed it but that should not be a major undertaking. I'll let you take
the lead on the GPS/Data interleave approach. I have around 200 Meg free on
the harddisk and could free up some more if needed for the data. But, 200MEG
of ASCII data is more than I would want to look at {:>).
Ed
Come to think of it I suspect Windows 95 runs DOS in native mode.
Later versions would not. Native mode is important as it
gives us direct hardware access to the RS232 comm ports.
In the DOS world 200 meg is plenty :-)
Here is a sample of only one sentence from the GPS.
there are other sentences with other data.
S-Ident Z Time uSEC Latitude Longit Speed Hdg D-M-Yr Checksum
$GPRMC,144051.023550,A,3352.269,N,11823.157,W,0000.4,190,120593,,,*27
Here is a little real time test program to run. It checks if you can acess
the hardware clock and hardware timer directly.
There is both the QB source shown here and the compiled
version attached.
If it runs on Windows 95 in a DOS window on your notebook
then the ON COMM command should work as well.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CLS
ON TIMER(1) GOSUB doit2
TIMER ON
start2:
TIMER ON
IF INKEY$ = CHR$(27) THEN GOTO enditall 'esc key
GOTO start2
enditall:
CLS
END
doit2:
PRINT TIME$; " "; DATE$
GOTO start2
---------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Lamar
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