On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 16:47:48 -0700, Sylvain wrote:

Grumman-581 wrote:

Unfortunately, some of the people making the decisions in these companies
don't necessarily see it that way...

so in short, the only reasonable long term stragegy would be to make
these things open source; I couldn't agree more, but how do you
go about achieving this? the manufacturer must either be coerced in
doing it (via regulations) or have a good incentive, i.e., a

Even if "open source" you have not addressed the hard ware you have in
hand issue. It would make it easier to replace with something more
modern, BUT what ever goes in would need to be certified. But for a
major piece of hard ware having a chip fail that is no longer
available...what do you do? Developing a replacement board, even if
you know the signal config into and out of the board, is going to be
expensive to the point of not being economically viable.

What would be nice would be some sort of standardization for the I/O
protocols instead of every one doing it "their own way". Of course I
think the same thing about the controls.

painfully obvious -- as in, that even the most bone-headed MBA
waiving PHB manager could understand -- evidence that it would
be in their best interest to open up at least the interface
specs. But considering what I have seen so far in the industry
I am not holding my breath...

--Sylvain
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com