[OSM-talk] open satnav hardware

[Robin Paulson]

On 12/11/2007, Nic Roets <nroets at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was also interested in buying an Neo1973 as a cheap GPS phone combo.
> But it looks like someone at FIC screwed up and you may need to
> installed a pirate closed source GPS driver with GTA01. And after

there's a different gps chip, with nmea output, in the next revision

> Then the local (South Africa) prices on the satnav dropped
> considerably and I discovered that some of them are WinCE 4.2 based.
> So I picked up a TGPS-374 (similar to the Axxion 374 / Majestic 01
> found in Europe) for US$260 (US$229 excl VAT) at the local retailer
> last week and I have earlier downloaded a nearly complete development
> suite for it in the form of eVC++ 4, SP4, Pocket PC SDK and
> ActiveSync.
>
> is of the same order as the "ARM Tax", namely a few cents. The "NAVTEQ
> Tax" is more than compensated for by having a keep eye for bargains.

ok, granted, you can shop around and get a good satnav bargain, then
put OSM on it. although the principle still remains (for me, at least
and others i suspect). i don't want to live in the shadow of
MS/navman/etc., hacking and re-tasking their undocumented hardware, i
want to stand alone.

plus, the major point i wanted to address: getting OSM out to the masses.
when do people use a map/satnav the most? when they are sat at home in
front of their desktop (the only way most people can get at the data
at present, without jumping through lots of hoops)? or when they are
driving/cycling/walking, when it is not convenient to use even a
laptop? i would assume the latter

there is currently no method (that i know of, please correct me if i
am wrong), that allows an average person, with little to no technical
expertise, to obtain a gps navigation device with 'free' map data on
it.

i assume that one of the the aims of OSM is to get as many people as
possible using it. following on from the recent
dell-with-ubuntu-installed exercise; this aim will be furthered by the
presence of satnav systems with OSM pre-loaded and easy to update.

if we do not make this data accessible to the general public, by
definition it will forever live in the shadows, used only by geeks and
hardcore mappers