• Welcome to OS2World OLD-STATIC-BACKUP Forum.
 

News:

This is an old OS2World backup forum for reference only. IT IS READ ONLY!!!

If you need help with OS/2 - eComStation visit http://www.os2world.com/forum

Main Menu

GPS

Started by Dennis, 2007.05.18, 00:08:19

Previous topic - Next topic

Dennis

I also should have mentioned GPS in my plea for Wifi help. Are there any GPS devices for a laptop that are compatable with OS/2-eCS?

Dennis
Dennis

RobertM

None that I know of, but they shouldnt be difficult to write using free maps available and something that connects to the GPS device via USB or serial to get the location and navigation information. Shouldnt need to be a big app, after all there are GPS devices that hook up to virtually any Bluetooth enabled Palm (and some of them barely have 10-20MB of space available).


|
|
Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
|
|


kim

#2
Interesting topic this since I often make use of GPS myself (using a Navman), but it would actually sometimes be rather nice to be able to make use of any kind of GPS-doongle together with OS2. Looking at SourceForget.net there are actually quite a few GPS-projects there available - haven't really looked for this earlier for OS2 - but among other quite a few of them are java based applications as well.

And one really looks interesting - JavaGPS that is 1 of 30 java based projects:

JavaGPS is a Java-only base library that enables access to GPS devices from within any Java application. Provides Java API, NMEA0183 parser, record and playback GPS log files, convert between earth dates and Gauss Krueger, GPS management GUI with map.

I guess that above might even be a solution, but I don't have the proper GPS hardware to make any tests.

Just for the fun of it and testing out how SMF forum takes care of attached images; here is a screen shoot from Le Petit Poucet gps software


rcrmonte3

Thanks for the idea, Robert, but I do not have the knowledge or training to be able to write any application. I'm totally clueless

Kim--Thank you for the tip. However, until I have an idea of what  GPS devices can be used, I guess I'll just have to go with a stand alone GPS device or try to figure out how to put windoze so-called OS on my notebook as a 2nd OS.....  I think saving my money so I can buy a standalone GPS unit will be my best bet.

Dennis

warpcafe

Guys,

that's interesting - the last time we were joking about that subject, we were talking about eCS as a car PC operating system and were wondering about some kind of GPS / maps-application combination.

In the meanwhile, I played around with google maps and obviously, both size, scale and coordinates of course can be passed along the URL, which BASICALLY means that if you have an arbitrary GPS device and a very, very basic OS/2 driver that is able to programmatically poll or fetch the longitude/latitude, you can build such kind of application on your own using a (rexx or whatever) script.
Requires an internet connection though, because of google maps. FWIW - I just wanted to give some suggestions, maybe someone else now suddenly has got a great, better idea or concept... anyway, just my 2 cents... ;-)

Regards,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

rcrmonte3

Thanks, Thomas. Now just open the top of my head and pour in the rexx script writing knowledge. The Internet connection would be made by a wifi connection--no problem if the hardware works right in the notebook. Now what? I am totally clueless as to how to write a REXX script, much less anything close to emulating GPS...

Dennis

RobertM

Quote from: rcrmonte3 on 2007.05.22, 00:55:46
Thanks, Thomas. Now just open the top of my head and pour in the rexx script writing knowledge. The Internet connection would be made by a wifi connection--no problem if the hardware works right in the notebook. Now what? I am totally clueless as to how to write a REXX script, much less anything close to emulating GPS...

Dennis


Well, dont know if you have ever programmed before...

(1) If you have, you will find REXX a joke - a very powerful joke, but the easiest language I've seen by far (and I've done C/C++, BASIC in various incarnations, ForTran, Pascal, APL, RPG, Perl and others)

(2) If you havent done programming before, you will find REXX very easy to pick up and learn - with tons of references on Hobbes and EDM/2.

In either case, there are numerous add-on libraries (for both COM based and USB based communication) that should provide all the additional functionality you need to communicate with almost any GPS out there to retrieve it's coordinates... and then you can very easily use Google Maps and Mozilla via a REXX generated HTML query to do just about anything including getting directions and continuously updating your position on the map - or even doing voice prompts (drop in BackTalk from Hobbes and its REXX dll) from the data that Google is sending back with just a little more work.

To make it really fancy, you can even use DrDialog or GpfREXX to get the Google result data and build custom screens with the information (while still doing all of the above).

Through these methods, the GPS unit would pretty much only be used to pass back your current location - a pretty easy thing to do from what I have read...


-Robert


|
|
Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
|
|


warpcafe

Hi,

it won't be a problem to have someone (me, if you want) create a script which does take the GPS current location data and pass it to the googlemaps for your browser. Basically you just call the browser with a specific URL in a timed manner (say every 5 seconds or so). It is not that complicated at all... problems will arise however once you want to put more features into it, tweak the useability or - the most complicated part - when trying to work around limitations by the software, browser, GPS connection or operating system.

The most important part here would be to have either a working API (means: it works on OS/2) for the GPS and/or the full specifications for using the GPS device on a given connection (serial, USB,...). Usually there is a driver that can be passed commands and you get something back in return (e.g. coordinates).
If you don't have this specs (most vendors keep them locked away for obvious reasons), you might still use the approach of "trial and error" but this is tedious and might not result in a "stable" application. So it all depends on documentation or ready-to-run drivers and utilities for the target operating system.

If someone finds a JAVA-based GPS software... that'll be cool. Something like jsync for Palms - but for a GPS device... perhaps then, we have something "portable"....?

Regards,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

kim

#8
What about JavaGPS, wouldn't that do some of the trick?

JavaGPS has the following key features:


  • Auto-detection of attached GPS device
  • Recording and playback of GPS data - Supports raw GPS logs and has an optimised log file format. JavaGPS converts between the two formats on the fly.
  • VRMI (WhereAmI) API - Supports trigger callbacks based on time (i.e. every 5 seconds, user does not move for 60 seconds) or location (i.e. if user enters or leaves a given region).
  • Management GUI - Displays current location in a map, GPS can be set up, log records can be started or logs can be played back and traced graphically.
  • Conversion between earth dates and ellipsoids, and conversion from and to Gauss-Krueger coordinate system

warpcafe

Hi,

JavaGPS looks promising!
I sneaked around the Garmin site and found that they have accessories like serial cables for some of their devices, even one that is claimed to be supported by JavaGPS.
I don't know however if that might justify the efforts to buy such a device and *try* to see if that whole Java/OS2 etc. stuff works... but I am willing to look into this is someone around here has a device and could send me some of the software/manuals etc. in return I could send back a rexx script.

BTW: Do we have a working DDE (or similar) connection to mozilla-based browsers?
(e.g. "remote controlling" the browser from code by passing/updating the URL) ;-)
AFAIK, we once had somehting like that for Netscape 4.x DDE...

Regards,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

RobertM

Quote from: warpcafe on 2007.05.22, 12:24:38
Hi,

JavaGPS looks promising!
I sneaked around the Garmin site and found that they have accessories like serial cables for some of their devices, even one that is claimed to be supported by JavaGPS.
I don't know however if that might justify the efforts to buy such a device and *try* to see if that whole Java/OS2 etc. stuff works... but I am willing to look into this is someone around here has a device and could send me some of the software/manuals etc. in return I could send back a rexx script.

BTW: Do we have a working DDE (or similar) connection to mozilla-based browsers?
(e.g. "remote controlling" the browser from code by passing/updating the URL) ;-)
AFAIK, we once had somehting like that for Netscape 4.x DDE...

Regards,
Thomas


Re: DDE... if not, installing Web/2 and using that as the intermediary with the scripts would work fine. I've already done that to use some of the Google Maps features. Also, by signing up for a Google Maps account, the number of things you can do with Google Maps expands significantly, and all can be done using REXX and Web/2 (and perhaps Curl or wGet) for control, parsing and data retrieval.

-Rob


|
|
Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
|
|


rcrmonte3

I have to thank you all for all the answers you gave to my GPS question. Every one of you has a much better technical and programming background than I do--by a long shot. However, most of the replies are way over my head. If it weren't for writing macros to make dbExpert do what I want it to do, I wouldn't have a clue about programming 2+2=4, much less everything that has been mentioned here. I was really hoping for an easy answer, but I guess there isn't one connected with eCS/OS/2. Looks like the easiest answer will be to get a standalone GPS device.

Thanks again for all your comments. You're a great bunch of people.

Dennis

RobertM

Quote from: rcrmonte3 on 2007.05.22, 21:11:59
I have to thank you all for all the answers you gave to my GPS question. Every one of you has a much better technical and programming background than I do--by a long shot. However, most of the replies are way over my head. If it weren't for writing macros to make dbExpert do what I want it to do, I wouldn't have a clue about programming 2+2=4, much less everything that has been mentioned here. I was really hoping for an easy answer, but I guess there isn't one connected with eCS/OS/2. Looks like the easiest answer will be to get a standalone GPS device.

Thanks again for all your comments. You're a great bunch of people.

Dennis


Hi Dennis...

If you've programmed macros for dbExpert, you will find REXX easy...

If you have the patience to wait a little, myself or someone else here will probably write something. I know I will need to sometime in the future for some clients of mine (EMS stations) and when I do, I so no reason (and have every intention to allow)  the eCS/Warp community to benefit from my work. I just dont have an exact time frame for that stage of the project yet.

When I do though, I will post info here. I still havent decided whether I will be writing a custom app or just linking the data through Google Maps. Either way, support will probably be limited to one specific set of GPS hardware - though my intention is to make the communications module very... modular, so that other devices can be supported at a later date by anyone [as I have no intention (read as dont have the funds to buy and play with) every GPS out there].



|
|
Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
|
|


kim

Speaking of Rexx - I just re-posted the old Rexx article from the old site - the article can be found here.