deadly_dave Posted April 10, 2004 Report Share Posted April 10, 2004 hi all, i have an Acer s60 hand-held pda is it at all possible to link it with FS9 to display the gps on it as this would be a cool feature. its connected to the pc via a craddle with usb connection. any help is welcome Cheers Dave... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Dowson Posted April 10, 2004 Report Share Posted April 10, 2004 i have an Acer s60 hand-held pda is it at all possible to link it with FS9 to display the gps on it as this would be a cool feature. its connected to the pc via a craddle with usb connection. I don't know anyone who has written a GPS program for FS9 which runs on a PDA, let alone via a USB connection. Sorry. You certainly can't separate bits of FS itself onto other PCs, let alone PDAs. Regards, Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuomas Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 You can use GPSOut.dll to run any of those moving map programs available for PocketPC though. //Tuomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Dowson Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 You can use GPSOut.dll to run any of those moving map programs available for PocketPC though. Only if the USB connection at the PC looks like a "COM" port (check the System-Device Manager). GPSout cannot handle a USB connection which looks like a USB connection -- in fact I don't know of any definition of a GPS protocol for use on USB unless it is emulating an RS232 connection. Regards, Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horst18519 Posted October 4, 2004 Report Share Posted October 4, 2004 Hi, I tried to use my pocket-pc via serial cable on COM1 with GPSOut, but I couldn't get a signal on the ppc. :( Can GPSOut handle Pocket-PCs? bye, Thorsten Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Dowson Posted October 4, 2004 Report Share Posted October 4, 2004 Can GPSOut handle Pocket-PCs? GPSout cannot handle anything at all. It isn't designed to handle anything at all. All it does is turn Flight Simulator into a GPS and outputs the standard NMEA signals almost any GPS does, and on the selected serial port. The NMEA standard defines the messages and the format, and it is for serial connections. GPSout has no idea what is on the other end and doesn't care. It doesn't receive anything, the protocol is 100% one way, PC serial port out to whatever you connect it to. The normal receiving end, on the other end of the serial cable (just 2 wires, basically) would be another PC running a moving map or similar -- just the sort of thing you'd connect a real GPS to. If your "Pocket" PC resembles an otdinary PC enough to have a normal serial port and you have software for it which can receive NMEA sentences on that serial port, then you might be able to use it. Try it with a real GPS instead of FS + GPSout. Does that work? You may have to make a special cable. I don't know anything about PDAs so I cannot really advise further. Sorry. Regards, Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horst18519 Posted October 4, 2004 Report Share Posted October 4, 2004 First thanx for the reply. :) My PDA has a GPS-Unit which I can connect to the PDA via serial cable. That means the port on my PDA is a "usual" COM-Port. I also can assign the Navigation-Software a 9600-connection on the COM-Port. That works perfectly well with the real GPS-stuff. So I wonder why it's not working with GPSOut. MAybe it's that my PDA tells me always how many Satellites it's receiving. Can GPSOut provide / simulate this function? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Dowson Posted October 4, 2004 Report Share Posted October 4, 2004 My PDA has a GPS-Unit which I can connect to the PDA via serial cable. That means the port on my PDA is a "usual" COM-Port. I also can assign the Navigation-Software a 9600-connection on the COM-Port. That works perfectly well with the real GPS-stuff. Okay, that's good then. Now you need to see what the settings are in the GPS -- or are they fixed? Some GPS's only allow the "standard" serial speed of 4800 bps, as specified by NMEA. If so, you'll need to set that speed in the GPSout.ini. And is the GPS set to output actual NMEA protocol data? Is the software on the PDA set to receive NMEA data? There may be other protocols in use, including proprietary ones. Next is to make sure that the cable from the PC port to the PDA is working. Is it one you've used for other things? If not, it may be a direct rather than twisted cable -- the TX from the PC needs to be connected to the RX on the PDA. MAybe it's that my PDA tells me always how many Satellites it's receiving. Can GPSOut provide / simulate this function? I think one of the sentences supported by GPSout provides such values, invented of course. If you don't know which NMEA sentences your software needs, then you'll need to try them all, then eliminate some (else it will be too slow, especially at 4800 bps). I can't remember which sentence type does what now -- I've got an NMEA protocol specification here somewhere (cost an arm and a leg!) but I've mislaid it, not found it in months. Best way to find out what your GPS is providing would be to connect it to a program which will display the data as it arrives for you. If you have no "terminal" program on the PDA, try linking it to your PC and using the Windows "hyperterminal" program to see what is arriving. If you want to see for yourself what GPSout is sending, you can actually monitor the PC serial port -- use PortMon from http://www.systeminternals.com. Regards, Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horst18519 Posted October 5, 2004 Report Share Posted October 5, 2004 Thanks, that sounds good. I'll try it with all sentences and 4800 bps and maybe check the Output-Signals. I can't connect the GPS-unit to my PC for now, because I don't have the right cable (the serial cable I bought especially for the GPSOut-Gimmick costet me already 30Eur...), though someone told me that I could mak my own serial cable if I check the Pins on the GPS-cable. Well, difficult to describe... :? Anyway, I'll tell you about the process. :wink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Dowson Posted October 5, 2004 Report Share Posted October 5, 2004 ... someone told me that I could mak my own serial cable if I check the Pins on the GPS-cable. Yes, as far as GPSout is concerned you only need 2 wires really: TXout and Common on the PC to RXin and Common on the PDA. The pins on the PC are easy enough: 9-pin pin 5 = common, pin 3 = TX out 25-pin pin 7 = common, pin 2 = TX out In the unlikely event that the socket on the PDA looks like one of these (i.e. a D9 or D25) then it will probably match. In that case the RX in is pin 2 on a 9-pin and pin 3 on a 25-pin. But the PDA will almost certainly have it's own peculiar style of plug or socket, in which case the best thing is to use the serial cable that came with is and make an extension, wired as above, to connect to its PC-end plug. The trouble is you won't know without trying which of pins 2 and 3 to connect to. The other problem is that the PDA may insist on one or other of the control lines being "True" before it operates -- one or more of DTR, DSR, CTS, RTS again depending how it is configured. You may need to tie its CTS and RTS together and also its DTR and DSR, or some other combination. In PC terms: 9-pin: DSR=6, DTR=4, CTS=8, RTS=7 25-pin: DSR=6, DTR=20, CTS=5, RTS=4 Regards, Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horst18519 Posted October 5, 2004 Report Share Posted October 5, 2004 Hi, I asked today in a PDA-Forum about the problem. I was told, that my MEDION Pocket-pc uses CGA and VTG. I didn't find CGA in the GPSOut.ini. Doesn't GPSOut support the CGA-Format? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Dowson Posted October 5, 2004 Report Share Posted October 5, 2004 I asked today in a PDA-Forum about the problem. I was told, that my MEDION Pocket-pc uses CGA and VTG. I didn't find CGA in the GPSOut.ini. Doesn't GPSOut support the CGA-Format? Are you sure that's not GGA, which is supported? I've not heard of CGA and it doesn't appear to be listed anyplace. Check the NMEA FAQ site, for instance, at http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter/nmeafaq.txt. Maybe it's a proprietary one, in which case you'd need specifications from the makers, or it's a brand new one. The NMEA 0183 spec is now priced at $325 so I'm afraid I'm not going to buy a new one. :( Regards, Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horst18519 Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 Yes, You were right. That guy in the other forum mistyped it. :? It's GGA. That qould mean it should work with VTG and GGA. Maybe I'll try it once more. I'll report if I'm succesful... :wink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rickalty Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 There's a freeware program called GPS Master that runs on a Palm compatible PDA and can communicate with MSFS via GPS Out. You can find it at... http://www.freewarepalm.com/communicatister.shtml However.... while I've gotten it to run on a Palm IIIxe using the serial connector, it wasn't very stable, and tended to freeze. If ayone can get it working smoothly it'd be perfect. Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horst18519 Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 That works not on my PPC though. Thanks for the link anyway. :wink: It still doesn't work. I'll first have to look what protokoll-data the PPC requires. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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