Community Update

Doug Sutherland doug at proficio.ca
Thu Nov 1 10:43:03 CET 2007


Okay this is what confuses me regarding this GPS "source code".
I have worked with several GPS modules. I have written code 
to configure them and read and parse their output. Why you 
would need the vendor's code is beyond me. They provide the
specs. The specs are all you need to write your own drivers.
Writing drivers for GPS is trivial. You should not have to update
firmware on GPS modules. Whatever for? They should basically
be black boxes that follow their specs. If you need to update 
firmware then you've picked the GPS module. Every module I
have looked at supports NMEA by default. That is plain text
output! Most also have binary data mode which offers much 
more capability. One simple command sets to receiver into 
binary mode. Writing drivers for the output is still trivial but
a bit more involved. Writing drives that can do absolutely 
all functions like saving almanacs and such is more work, 
but most people probably don't even need that. I am baffled
why there should EVER be a need for any kind of binary 
file for a GPS. What does it do exactly? Is the device not 
a serial device? Can't you just write your own serial code?

  -- Doug




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