On Mon, 2006-12-04 at 14:15 +0000, Michael Rigby-Jones wrote:
> 
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] 
> >Sent: 04 December 2006 14:08
> >To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
> >Subject: RE: [PIC] Why the preoccupation with bus powered programmers?
> >
> >
> >On Mon, 2006-12-04 at 22:09 +1100, Tony Smith wrote:
> >> In the real world, serial is almost dead (the occasional 56k modem), 
> >> and I'm surprised that parallel has hung on for so long.  Must be a 
> >> lot of old printers out there.
> >> 
> >> A Dell laptop I had recently had both a serial & a parallel 
> >port, but 
> >> no PS2.  I thought that was odd.
> >
> >Yes, and it bit me pretty bad once. When I was buying a laptop 
> >a serial port was very important since the GPS units I had 
> >were both serial. It wasn't until I bought the laptop and 
> >tried using the SECOND GPS that I discovered it didn't have a 
> >PS2 port. The PS2 port of course power many GPS serial 
> >devices. Had to actually go out and buy a USB GPS device on 
> >the road, very annoying, but all my fault.
> >
> >TTYL
> 
> I think I'd have kludged a USB/PS2 power converter rather than paying for a new GPS!

On the road? Didn't have any tools, any equipment, and I NEEDED the GPS
working for that trip, didn't have much choice.

The funny thing is the USB GPS I bought is a SERIAL unit with PS2 for
power! It just comes with a USB dongle with a USB-RS232 converter in it
and a PS2 recepticle! Grr...

The benefit however is it's a more modern GPS chipset, to it locks on
cold start much faster then my "few year old" GPS, and also can recover
from dropouts MUCH faster.

GPS technology is one of those things where the receivers have improved
many magnitudes over the years. The first GPS receiver I purchased
sometimes took up to 10 minutes to lock on cold start, took up to a
minute to recover on dropout, was a power HOG, and often didn't lock on
more then 4 birds (I think it was a 6 receiver design). And don't even
think about not giving it a 100% unobstructed view of the sky.

My latest GPS receiver cold starts < 1 minute, recovers from drop out in
seconds and takes so little power you barely notice.

TTYL

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