Sorry - another GPS question

Chris proteus1@gmxDOTnet said:

and you can pick up GPS units for less than
2/3 the cost over here.

I should add that the 2/3 cost includes packing, handling
and shipping. Without those the GPS units are roughly half
the price we pay for them over here.

Norman said:

I am surprised Steve hasn't got the required 9 pin serial
ports. Most motherboards have two.

But perhaps they haven't been installed in the case.
Simply a matter of poking the appropriate holes and
plugging in the ports, if he has them (sometimes they come
with a plug in lead rather than as part of the motherboard
- same with USB).

Paul
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"Chris" <proteus1@gmxDOTnet> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

KRO said:

Quoted message said:

You could use Ozi or GPSU which

insert : " I think I'm right"

Quoted message said:

in saying you can use scanned maps you already have, or
something like Anquet or Memory Map.

OziExplorer and GPSU will both allow the use of scanned
maps. Memory Map 3 would also. Memory map 4 (UK edition)
will not, because the OS have forbidden it.

I didn't know MM3 would allow scanned maps. It's quite
annoying the restrictions that the OS (government owned) are
putting on use of "their" maps. Sorry, I'm gettin annoyed,
did I pay taxes for that? Same as the non-commital answer
from my local MSP (waste of space) regarding the Met Office
charging for weather forecasts........ (Rants on and on and
realises nobody, far less those in receipt of my hard earned
taxes, are even pretending to listen)

KRO

"Norman" <[email hidden].> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I bought a cheapo USB serial interface from ebuyer
(£5-odd + VAT from ebuyer) and it talks very happily
to my 201.

Steve.

I am surprised Steve hasn't got the required 9 pin serial
ports. Most motherboards have two.

Steve does have the required 9 pin serial port, but it is on
the back of the PC and a serious pain to get to because of
where the PC is. My GPS cable is a combined serial & 12V
power cable, so when I take the Geko on long car journeys I
need to disconnect the cable, and re-connect it afterwards.
£5 for a USB serial port that I can put in a more convenient
place was well worth it.

Steve.

Paul Saunders said:

Norman said:

I am surprised Steve hasn't got the required 9 pin serial
ports. Most motherboards have two.

But perhaps they haven't been installed in the case.
Simply a matter of poking the appropriate holes and
plugging in the ports, if he has them (sometimes they come
with a plug in lead rather than as part of the motherboard
- same with USB).

Paul

I guess he has a recent laptop - in which case (a) no
serial ports,
(b) no access unless brave.

Jim H

KRO said:

I didn't know MM3 would allow scanned maps. It's quite
annoying the restrictions that the OS (government owned)
are putting on use of "their" maps. Sorry, I'm gettin
annoyed, did I pay taxes for that?

That's rip-off Britain, once again!

KRO said:

I didn't know MM3 would allow scanned maps. It's quite
annoying the restrictions that the OS (government owned)
are putting on use of "their" maps. Sorry, I'm gettin
annoyed, did I pay taxes for that? Same as the non-commital
answer from my local MSP (waste of space) regarding the Met
Office charging for weather forecasts........ (Rants on and
on and realises nobody, far less those in receipt of my
hard earned taxes, are even pretending to listen)

I recall a Steve Bell cartoon which illustrated the
economies of privatisation very nicely. Big Mag Thatch was
doing great business selling nearly new clothes to a large
enthusiastic crowd at knock down prices from the back of a
lorry, while a gang of thugs with strangely familiar faces
were kocking folk down and stripping their clothes off at
the edges of the crowd.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
["]http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Norman said:

I am surprised Steve hasn't got the required 9 pin
serial ports. Most motherboards have two.

But perhaps they haven't been installed in the case.
Simply a matter of poking the appropriate holes and
plugging in the ports, if he has them (sometimes they come
with a plug in lead rather than as part of the motherboard
- same with USB).

You'd be amazed, but sometimes mass-produced motherboards
actually omit that expansion chip to save the .0001 penny.

I've been caught like this with an IBM motherboard. Manual
said it had expansion RS232 port, so I went and bought the
plugin connector, opened case - no damn place to connect the
connector.

Besides, is RS232 creaky or what? This is the 21st
century y'know!
--
Mark South Citizen of the World, Denizen of the Net <<Tiens!
Ce poulet a une grenade!

Gordon said:

There would be serious restrictions on map area,

Probably.

Quoted message said:

even at 50k, judging by the fact that I can only load
about 2/3 of UK Roads & Recreation maps into the 24Mb of
the Vista.

The Garmins have 115 meg I believe.

Quoted message said:

Compare that level of detail with what the OS maps
contain, and I would imagine that the area would be
much less.

Perhaps, but I suspect the GPS mapping wouldn't have as much
detail as the paper maps. Wossname already said that the
Magellan mapping didn't show buildings. Contour lines might
be more widely spaced, no need for textures in forests and
open ground, less text perhaps. Hopefully the level of
detail would be configurable so you could leave out some
detail to cover a larger area.

Quoted message said:

However, this would not be a great disadvantage to the
walker, who normally uses less than an OS map on a day
walk. Except for a few members here...... ;-)

Yes, but it would be a great disadvantage if you go away for
a week and plan to visit several different areas, especially
after spending all that dosh on one. Big question therefore
is whether it's possible to load multiple small areas or
whether you are limited to one contiguous area. If the
latter it may be necessary to carry a laptop on long trips.

Paul
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Gordon said:

Gordon found it a nuisance having to swap between his GPS
cable and his games joystick/steering wheel when his
machine only had one serial port, so he plugged an
extension cable in the PC which brought the plug out to a
more accessible location. Now he has a machine which
sensibly has two serial ports. :-)

I bought an extension serial port lead too. Very handy. I
have three serial devices so I can leave one permanently
plugged into the back and share the other two between the
extension lead. In addition the printer port is occupied as
are all four USB ports and a firewire port.

Complete device list;

Film scanner (Firewire) Flatbed scanner (USB) Digital camera
/ card reader (USB) Steering wheel (USB) A3 printer (USB) A4
printer (LPT1) MIDI interface (COM2) GPS (COM1 chared)
Handheld PC (COM1 shared)

Not much room for anything else...

Paul
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Mark South said:

Besides, is RS232 creaky or what? This is the 21st
century y'know!

True, but it all depends what's on the end of the lead. All
my USBs are full anyway.

Paul
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Paul Saunders said:

Yes, but it would be a great disadvantage if you go away
for a week and plan to visit several different areas,
especially after spending all that dosh on one. Big
question therefore is whether it's possible to load
multiple small areas or whether you are limited to one
contiguous area. If the latter it may be necessary to
carry a laptop on long trips.

I understood that the OS had limited the download to a
single 64MB region, but it's not clear whether (using a
sneaky method that's standard on Meridians) you can have
multiple regions of that size stored on a single SD card.

At the very least, you should be able to load up multiple
SD cards with separate maps and then install the one that
you want : the Magellan reps were swapping their units
between topo and street mapping by swapping SD cards.
However, this would only apply to the Meridian, not the
SportTrak (which is the product aimed more at the walker).

The topo software was supposed to be available on 3rd
May. But when I tried to order it, I was told it was now
due on 28th May.

-wossname

"Gordon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Gordon found it a nuisance having to swap between his GPS
cable and his games joystick/steering wheel when his
machine only had one serial port, so he plugged an
extension cable in the PC which brought the plug out to a
more accessible location. Now he has a machine which
sensibly has two serial ports. :-)

That idea did occur to me, but since I already had a USB
hub in an accessible place, and since the USB serial port
was so cheap, I thought I'd take the opportunity to acquire
another gadget! Can't imagine a serial extension cable
costing any less that I paid to the USB serial port, so
cost wasn't a factor...

Steve.

Gordon said:

but honestly - if they can afford all the expenses
incurred in serious walking, petrol, GPS, walking poles,
tents, etc, surely they can afford a bloody map?

Yes, but it's not just one...

Paul
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Gordon said:

if they can afford all the expenses incurred in serious
walking, petrol, GPS, walking poles, tents, etc, surely
they can afford a bloody map?

Some of us object to paying twice for the same thing.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The Garmins have 115 meg I believe.

The 60 series have 56MB of non-expandable memory.

So the 76 series looks to be the best.

Paul
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"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I bought an extension serial port lead too. Very handy. I
have three serial devices so I can leave one permanently
plugged into the back and share the other two between the
extension lead. In addition the printer port is occupied
as are all four USB ports and a firewire port.

Complete device list;

Film scanner (Firewire) Flatbed scanner (USB) Digital
camera / card reader (USB) Steering wheel (USB) A3 printer
(USB) A4 printer (LPT1) MIDI interface (COM2) GPS (COM1
chared) Handheld PC (COM1 shared)

Not much room for anything else...

Come on then - what's the steering wheel for? I don't
envisage you playing Grand Theft Auto!

KRO

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Mark South said:

Besides, is RS232 creaky or what? This is the 21st
century y'know!

True, but it all depends what's on the end of the lead.
All my USBs are full anyway.

But then all you need to do is plug in a new hub and net 3
or more ports for a few quid. With RS232 ports it's a whole
new (expensive) card and you probably have no PCI slots
anyway :-(

Chris proteus1@gmxDOTnet said:

Some of us object to paying twice for the same thing.

Ha ha! I could pay for that many multiples of twice without
feeling objetionable!

--

Paul

My Lake District walking site:

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KRO said:

Come on then - what's the steering wheel for? I don't
envisage you playing Grand Theft Auto!

Serious racing games of course! Simulations, not arcade!
Current favourites are Toca Race Driver (I know some people
[censored] it off as arcade but it isn't, they just haven't got
their wheels set up right), F1 2002 (*the* F1 simulation),
and various version of Colin McRae Rally (I know it isn't as
*sim* as certain others but it's by far the most fun and it
*feels* the best - Mobil 1 Rally had more realistic stages
but just didn't drive as well). Also Nascar 4 - going round
in circles is potentially the most boring of race types but
to say that this game is nail-bitingly exciting is a measure
of just how realistic it is. I never believed that going
around in circles could be this difficult, challenging
and/or exciting! A tremendous degree of skill involved at
the highest level.

Having said that, all three games mentioned above are a
little out of date. Toca Race Driver is now (or soon)
superceded by a new version which is even better (no other
race game has such a quantity and variety of tracks
available), CMR3 is soon to be replaced by CMR4 (a little
too quickly for my liking, CMR3 didn't even have proper
force feedback implemented in the PC version), F1 has now
reached the pinnacle with F1 Challenge 1999-2002 (which even
has accurate and visible bumps on the tracks) and I presume
the latest Nascar version is even better.

One final word (apologies to all walkers who aren't race sim
fans), there's one *old* racing game which still offers
terrific racing gameplay, remarkable for it's age, and
that's Sports Car GT. Most old racing games I wouldn't touch
with a bargepole anymore (sorry TOCA2), but Sports Car GT
still delivers thrilling racing in spite of it's dated
graphics. Check it out if you haven't already.

Oh, Grand Theft Auto. I saw my nephew playing that recently.
the latest version looked kinda fun, mowing down innocent
bystanders for points. Terribly non-PC, but I hate PC stuff
anyway so right on!

Paul
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