[aprssig] D710 GPS Port

[Scott Miller]

Yeah, I was pestering them about the developer's kit last year when it 
was first announced.  I'm working with a Maxim host controller chip 
right now, but that only solves half of the problem.

If you plug in a Garmin GPS, it will speak Garmin binary protocol over 
(IIRC) a bulk endpoint.  If you plug in a Magellan, it'll do NMEA on one 
endpoint and provide a mass storage device that you access as a FAT file 
system to change waypoints and such.

As for the assorted headless units sold by Deluo and others, who knows? 
  Some of them have FTDI chips, some have other brands.  In every case, 
they provide drivers for major operating systems, usually provided by 
the chipset vendor.  They do NOT provide specs on how the interface works.

Go check out the usbserial section of the Linux kernel sometime.  There 
are DOZENS of drivers in there to support assorted serial devices.

I'm not saying it can't be done, and in fact I want to add some USB 
capabilities to my own devices, BUT - I really doubt Kenwood's ever 
going to take on what would probably turn out to be a support nightmare 
without field upgradeable firmware.

Scott
N1VG

Andreas Junge, N6NU wrote:
> Scott,
> 
> check out this new FTDI host controller:
> 
> http://www.vinculum.com/documents/fwspecs/Vinculum%20Firmware%20User%20Manual%20V2.1%20Rev%202.pdf
> 
> 73,
> 
> Andreas, N6NU