Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 09:43:47 -0700 From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com> To: Brad Karp <karp@eecs.harvard.edu> Cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPS PCMCIA cards; time acquisition Message-ID: <199712101643.JAA19209@mt.sri.com> In-Reply-To: <199712101552.KAA31902@dominator.eecs.harvard.edu> References: <199712101552.KAA31902@dominator.eecs.harvard.edu>
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> I'm looking for PCMCIA GPS cards for a GPS-assisted routing research > project I'm starting at Harvard. As we are as well in a project at work. > I've had an advisee of mine look into vendors and their products. What > he's found is that while several vendors _were_ making PCMCIA GPS > receivers, almost all have stopped manufacturing them. He informs me that > the reps he's spoken with cite lack of demand as the reason. > > In particular, he tells me that Sony, whose GPS receiver is listed in > PAO's pccard.conf, has stopped making their card. > > The bottom line is that he says the _only_ card he's been able to find > for sale anymore is the SatNav from Centennial Technologies. This card > presents a serial port interface, and provides a data stream of > position fixes and time information, either in a proprietary or NMEA > format. The card is based on Rockwell hardware. Hmmmm, I wasn't aware that this card even exists. Thanks for the pointer. > My question: can anyone confirm cards that are _still_ for sale by > other vendors? I know that both Garmin and Trimble don't. As a matter of fact, during a recent military excercise my company was involved with, one of the Senators/Generals/high muckity-muck in the govt. asked the President/CEO of Trimble to 'restart' the PCMCIA line for the Marines, which they did and built 1000 units for the excercise before shutting it down again. But, they have no plans on doing that again. (I have one of the older cards locally, but it is a piece of crap compared to the external Garmin receiver we're using for tests right now.) > And does anyone know of a PCMCIA GPS receiver that has > microsecond time source accuracy (pulsed, as above)? Experience with > particular cards is welcome, too, of course. > > An alternative would be for us to buy a stand-alone, battery-powered > GPS with accurate clock that has a serial interface. I've been *very* impressed with the Garmin 12XL, although I don't know if it has a microsecond clock you have access to. (I highly doubt it, especially since the NMEA rate is 4800 baud, which is nowhere near fast enough for uS accuracy out.) > In that case, > we'd need to add a serial port to our laptops, because the built-in > one is already spoken for by a Metricom radio network interface. Are > add-on PCMCIA serial ports available, and if so, any recommendations? Socket makes the only one I'm aware of, in both a single/dual configuration. However, the dual configuration only works with Win95 according to Socket. We've almost given up on getting a PCMCIA/GPS at this time, and have resigned ourselves to using the PCMCIA/serial board. In any case, I'd be *very* interested in whatever you decide to do, since we're facing the same problems here. Nate
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