September 23, 2009 05:03
It seems to me that the marine industry standards for electronic communication protocols (NMEA) are at the heart of this issue.
Yes, NMEA 0183 is a serial protocol that is well past its "best by" date. The marine industry is slowly phasing this out and replacing it with its latest standard, NMEA 2000, which, by the way, is not directly USB compatible either.
You see, I want my gps units to talk to my VHF DSC radio, AIS, autopilot, and instruments! not just my Mac. And these devices do not have USB ports. Instead, they use the NMEA protocols.
I definitely do not want to have to keep my Mac turned on because of a dedicated USB gps to navigate safely. That would introduce a single point of failure in my nav setup.
So, I am really glad that GPSNavX and MacENC adhere to the NMEA protocol.
Yes, NMEA 0183 is a serial protocol that is well past its "best by" date. The marine industry is slowly phasing this out and replacing it with its latest standard, NMEA 2000, which, by the way, is not directly USB compatible either.
You see, I want my gps units to talk to my VHF DSC radio, AIS, autopilot, and instruments! not just my Mac. And these devices do not have USB ports. Instead, they use the NMEA protocols.
I definitely do not want to have to keep my Mac turned on because of a dedicated USB gps to navigate safely. That would introduce a single point of failure in my nav setup.
So, I am really glad that GPSNavX and MacENC adhere to the NMEA protocol.
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Jon Longworth
Jon Longworth