GPSOut -> GPSIn

[jjjanezic]

Hi Pete,

did you ever think about to read out GPS-data from a real GPS-Unit and write it via the COM-Port into a PC?

The reason for my question:

As you maybe know I'm developing the FMGC for our project. Well, I've finished the Flightplan-pages and want to test them in a real aircraft. Therefor I would like to sit into the bloody C150 and try to use my FMGC on a laptop for navigation.

Thanks,

[Pete Dowson]

did you ever think about to read out GPS-data from a real GPS-Unit and write it via the COM-Port into a PC?

No, sorry. Personally, I don't see the point of using FS as a moving map when there are much better and more accurate map programs which run faster and smoother.

However, others have already mentioned this (see several threads here on the subject), so I expect there are some developments along those lines in progress somewhere. It's an application that any programmer can provide, but it isn't really of much interest to me -- I provide the tools, like FSUIPC, which make it possible.

GPSout was written many years ago (FS95 time, way before FSUIPC and WideFS) for my own amusement specifically to provide a moving map for FS.

Therefor I would like to sit into the bloody C150 and try to use my FMGC on a laptop for navigation.

Ah, I see. I expect that reading the output from a GPS and using it to inject positional data into FS would be a relatively trivial program for you to knock up then. You could make it very specific to the particular GPS you will be using, so cutting down the work needed for a full NMEA parser quite significantly.

Regards,

Pete

[jjjanezic]

Hi Pete,

thanks for your fast answer. Well - to be honest - my problem is, that I don't have any idea how to communicate between the GPS on the Com-Port and my software and I thought - because this work is done in the GPSout.dll - it would be just a question of few minutes to do it the other way around.

But anyway, thanks,

[Pete Dowson]

my problem is, that I don't have any idea how to communicate between the GPS on the Com-Port and my software and I thought - because this work is done in the GPSout.dll - it would be just a question of few minutes to do it the other way around.

Er, no. Chucking stuff generated by my own logic out to a COM port involves Writes. There are no Reads at all in GPSout. However, that's not the point -- there are no NMEA parsing instructions in GPSout. There are no writes to FSUIPC. None of the code in GPSout is applicable except possibly the opening and closing of the COM port (as a file).

You'll find COM port I/O easy enough. It's handled in Windows just like a file. You open it, read it, close it. There are extra bits for setting port properties and so on but they're easy to look up! I don't remember this stuff, I look it up as I go along in any case!

Regards,

Pete