[aprssig] Part 2/3: Updating APRS Clients (History)

[Ev Tupis]

It is my observation (I was involved with APRS since its' public inception) that APRS was the brainchild of a strategic military mind and engineered ahead of its day.  Thoughts of "situational awareness" were foreign to audiences outside of the military; even then, the  Navy's point of view was immature in comparison to what it is today.

As a result, the good idea gave birth to APRSdos.  

Technology changed, APRSdos' author didn't update the program to work natively on the new OS's, so others stepped forward to write for DOS-replacing environments.  At that time in history, the development spec was largely in the mind of the APRS author.  It wasn't easy to convey to others.  Doing so was full of pitfalls of ambiguity, yet the other authors did the best that they could or were willing to do.

As a result (and with a significant amount of blood, sweat and tears), APRS now has a Protocol Specification.

As anyone involved in any development activity is aware, this is only one aspect of such a project...but a very important one, provided that it was developed with the needs of the consumer-base in mind.  If not, then it is a great document that may lead to great products that technologists will trumpet but that consumers won't use.

Kind regards,
Evhen Tupis, W2EV







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