Curtis L. Olson wrote:
Boris,
I got about 20% through your message before I ran out of steam,
sounds like you are somewhat related to Erik ;-)
but if you talk to Bill again, why don't you propose that they keep their
application closed source and proprietary. Having seen the commercial
side of life just a bit, there are good reasons for these guys to be
careful.
I fully agree with what you are saying and if you had managed to get
through 30 % of the message that I posted, you would have noticed that
I suggested already exactly what you are mentioning:
There is low life scum at every corner just itchinig to rip
you off, and copy your software and hardware, and do it from some remote
country with no laws against doing this.
What would be great is if they could add an interface to their gps
simulator so that we could send the position from FlightGear. They
could keep their application completely closed and proprietary and safe
from the scum of the earth, but it would give us enough functionality so
that someone could run their simulator software on a 2nd computer and
interface it with FG.
So, I did suggest adding either a network interface to the simulator
or alternatively splitting up the application into a binary library
and a GUI part.
To summarize what I posted already in the previous posting: they would
love to support such an effort but simply cannot afford assigning the
required resources for such a modification - simply because this
wouldn't create any direct revenue for Garmin :-/
Also, from a programmer point of view you need to take into account
that the whole task does not merely come down to feeding long/lat
info into the stand alone simulator:
The GNS530 is a highly interactive system, it interacts not only
with the user/pilot - but also with various other aircraft systems...
More specifically: com/nav radio, hsi, autopilot etc.
The above would be MINIMALLY requied to actually be able to
really use the simulator with FG (or any flight sim)
So, one would really need to define a corresponding network
interface.
Indeed, I made already the corresponding suggestions for an
interface - in order to illustrate what would be involved.
I think we could come up with some reasons why
that would make good business sense to Garmin, and would facilitate
using their gps simulator in larger simulation environments where real
pilots train, which would feed on itself and encourage these pilots to
go out and purchase the same unit for their real airplanes.
Well, I went on even one step further:
I then mentioned that it would not even be all that unlikely for
end users (flight sim people) to be willing to actually PAY for
the possibility to really use such a high fidelity simulator with
their flight simulator of choice:
Personally, I wouldn't mind paying $ 20 US for such a piece of
software - taking into account the very active flight simulator
community, such a modification might indeed create SOME revenue
for Garmin.
Getting back to your above comment: indeed, Garmin Ltd. offers already
a standalone GNS HARDWARE unit that can be used in fixed base simlators-
exactly for that purpose.
So from that point of view they might also fear the potential
competition that they might create with a interfaceable software
simulator of the unit.
I didn't yet get detailed feedback about the other alternatives that
I offered (some of which I didn't even yet mention on the list),
so I will report back about any feedback that I'll receive.
If you want to give me Bill's contact info (offline) I would be happy to
give him a call and try my luck.
Posting that info on the list is probably not a good idea - and
taking into account that you keep mentioning your problem of
keeping in sync with your inbox, sending you an eMail with
that data doesn't really sound feasible either ;-)
I would suggest that you take a look at Garmin's webpage for that
information (should be there: he's responsible for the sales support
and technical inquiries - just look for the name).
However, depending on whether you really want to talk directly to
him, it might be helpful for you to be up to date about our earlier
exchanges.
I could either forward all the previous exchanges to you by eMail
or try to summarize the most important stuff (ideas & offers).
Or I could have the president of ATC
flight simulators give him a call ... that might grab his attention a
bit more???
Well, good luck about that - indeed you can assume that I sounded
already pretty convincing ;-)
What MIGHT be an option though, if "ATC FS" -as a company- offered
to take care of the actual implementation for an interface ...
Taking into account that you mentioned in your AOPA posting that
the lack of Garmin GPS device support within FG was an issue on
the recent AOPA convention, this might be feasible for them ???
----------
Boris
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