who here works for Garmin Inc?

what are they (if anything) "rolling out"
@ OSH this year? Anything exciting?
Any upgrades to the 396 I should know
about b4 purchasing?......thanx!!!

richard
colorado
c172rg / 2V2

Dunno about exciting, but I just downloaded the latest operating system
yesterday on the 296, ver 4.2, and then down loaded a fresh database...
Upon restart the box cheerfully announced that it has NO terrain
database to be found... hmmm, durned gremlins...

Called Garmin, the tech allowed as how he had never heard of that
one... We downloaded a fresh $150 terrain database on Garmin's nickle
and all is well in Mudville tonight... Ya gotta be careful when you
depend upon boxes that run on magic smoke... If the magic leaks out on
a dark and stormy night you are in trouble...

denny

Or in IMC.... on our trip back from Michigan I needed to shoot the GPS 3
into STE, so I loaded it up in the KLN94 and thought I'd follow along on my
FlightPrep system on my laptop. So I switched from the XM weather page to
the approach plate but was still too far out for the little magic airplane
to appear on the plate. Ok, switch back to the XM weather just to make sure
we'd be on the north side of the approaching thunderstorms, yep, plenty of
room to get around them... switch back to the approach plate.....

You guessed it.... crash... darn Microsoft... so I had to put the toys
away, get serious, and fly the approach "for real". So, until the plates
come in an affordable panel mount system, there will always be paper in my
airplane.

Jim


"Denny" wrote in message
oups.com...

Dunno about exciting, but I just downloaded the latest operating system
yesterday on the 296, ver 4.2, and then down loaded a fresh database...
Upon restart the box cheerfully announced that it has NO terrain
database to be found... hmmm, durned gremlins...

Called Garmin, the tech allowed as how he had never heard of that
one... We downloaded a fresh $150 terrain database on Garmin's nickle
and all is well in Mudville tonight... Ya gotta be careful when you
depend upon boxes that run on magic smoke... If the magic leaks out on
a dark and stormy night you are in trouble...

denny

In article ,
"Jim Burns" wrote:

Or in IMC.... on our trip back from Michigan I needed to shoot the GPS 3
into STE, so I loaded it up in the KLN94 and thought I'd follow along on my
FlightPrep system on my laptop. So I switched from the XM weather page to
the approach plate but was still too far out for the little magic airplane
to appear on the plate. Ok, switch back to the XM weather just to make sure
we'd be on the north side of the approaching thunderstorms, yep, plenty of
room to get around them... switch back to the approach plate.....

You guessed it.... crash... darn Microsoft... so I had to put the toys
away, get serious, and fly the approach "for real". So, until the plates
come in an affordable panel mount system, there will always be paper in my
airplane.


Though I'm not Windows fan, I believe that Avidyne and others use
Windows as the foundation for their avionics systems. However, they
strip out all of the junk that normally accumulates on a PC and are left
with a fairly stable (and hardened) system. I suspect that you could
approach that level of reliability if you did the same--stripped the
system of everything but the FlightPrep, WxWorx, etc. But then, that
would remove most of the non-aviation utility from the system.




JKG

In article ,
Jonathan Goodish wrote:

Though I'm not Windows fan, I believe that Avidyne and others use
Windows as the foundation for their avionics systems.

I don't believe that Avidyne uses windows in any form for their PFD
or MFD products.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

In article ,
Bob Noel wrote:
In article ,
Jonathan Goodish wrote:

Though I'm not Windows fan, I believe that Avidyne and others use
Windows as the foundation for their avionics systems.

I don't believe that Avidyne uses windows in any form for their PFD
or MFD products.


If they don't, it must have been a recent change. It has been a poorly
kept secret over the years that the Avidyne systems run a stripped-down
version of Windows. I believe the same is true for the MX20, though I'm
not sure how much for the MX20 Garmin retained in the new GMX200.



JKG

"Jonathan Goodish" wrote in message
...
...

Though I'm not Windows fan, I believe that Avidyne and others use
Windows as the foundation for their avionics systems. However, they
strip out all of the junk that normally accumulates on a PC and are left
with a fairly stable (and hardened) system. I suspect that you could
approach that level of reliability if you did the same--stripped the
system of everything but the FlightPrep, WxWorx, etc. But then, that
would remove most of the non-aviation utility from the system.

As I understand it, Avidyne uses Embedded Windows NT (a Microsoft product)
in their EX5000 MFD. I suspect they also use it in their EX500 MFD. This
was one reason why it took a long time for them to introduce USB flash
memory compatibility for data upload/download. The original version only
supported USB Zip drives, since that was the only USB drivers available for
Embedded Win NT.

Starting with Version 6.x on the Cirrus (EX5000C) MFDs, they now support Zip
drives and USB "keychain" drives.

You are correct that Embedded Win NT is "stripped down". That's one reason
why it is much more reliable than the desktop versions.

As to the Entegra PFD, it's an entirely different (although externally
similar-looking) product. It does not use any Windows operating system. I
believe they do use an RTOS (real-time operating system), but they would not
tell me if they used an off-the-shelf RTOS or wrote their own.

-Mike

wrote:
what are they (if anything) "rolling out"
@ OSH this year? Anything exciting?
Any upgrades to the 396 I should know
about b4 purchasing?......thanx!!!

Yea, if you have any insider information why don't you post it on the
usenet. We won't tell anyone.

-Robert

Any upgrades to the 396 I should know
about b4 purchasing?......thanx!!!

Someone just sent me an email with "insider information". Don't know if
it's true. It talked about a 496 being unveiled a OSH. I deleted it and
will ask him to send me the link again.

It talked about having AOPA Directory installed, Airport Taxiway guidance
for 600 airports, a faster processor and a pre-installed CitySelect
software. 2,795.00. Is this true? I don't know, but...they would have to
add a LOT more to make me trade in the 396. What was shown was way too
little and unnecessary.

AFAIK, what most pilots are screaming for are all the features of the 396
plus...
a.. TOUCH SCREEN...HELLO...TOUCH SCREEN!!!!
b.. Airways (so you can enter airways for your route instead of each fix
on the airway)
c.. The FULL IFR approach
d.. ALTITUDES shown for the IFR approaches as well as the MEA's on the
airways
e.. ALL taxiways with GPS navigation on ALL the airports
f.. I won't mind a graphical representation of the airport's traffic
patterns with the 45 entry shown.
I hope the rumor of the above mentioned new features is not true...I have
had MUCH higher hopes for the 496.

Kobra

In article ,
"Kobra" wrote:

a.. TOUCH SCREEN...HELLO...TOUCH SCREEN!!!!

No way do I want a touch screen!
Who wants to wear holes in an LCD screen?
Replacement costs would be prohibitive.