F8 and a GPS -OT

[Robin Laing]

Rick Stevens wrote:
> Simon Slater wrote:
>> On Wed, 2008-07-02 at 19:03 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Les H
>>>> ANother OLD RS232 and other serial buss Factually Accurate but often
>>>> Retarded Technician.
>>> There are times Les, when that description is too accurate. :-(
>>>
>> I don't suppose someone of your ilk could point a young bloke to some
>> reading on serial comms with linux boxes?  I have a box of odd things
>> I'd like to get going to save some manual data input (microchip reader,
>> barcode scanners etc).  Might even be useful when I get a GPS next year.
>> I keep putting it off for a rainy day, but the drought hasn't broken
>> yet.  About 20 years ago did a bit with minicom and remote weather
>> stations, but can't recall how I got started.
> 
> At the C/C++ program level, the most common stuff you'll deal with is
> the termios(3) calls for setting baud rates, stop bits, etc.  From
> there, it's a matter of calling getc(), putc() and other similar
> system calls to get data from and send data to the device.  Make sure
> you watch out for the "raw" versus "cooked" modes of the data streams
> (e.g. a carriage return from the device may appear as a newline in the
> "cooked" input stream).
> 
> Most other high-level languages (Perl, Java) use termios-type things
> to control the ports.
> 
> Good luck.

Just for some info.  If you are looking at getting a GPS system.

Garmin Nav devices run Gnome Linux
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8827997755.html

There are many devices that are supported directly in Linux.

-- 
Robin Laing