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Subject: TWL: Re: Computer versus dedicated systems.
From: Mr O C English (owen@XXX.XXX)
Date: Tue Jan 01 2002 - 16:11:55 EST
Dead right. As a programmer (writing mainly for safety critical medical
settings), I am still in 2002 writing new applications in DOS to run on DOS
PC's. The only benefactor of WindoZe has been Mr Gaytis himself and it even
gets worse when you are told "sorry guv, it won't run on Windows 98, you'll
'ave to upgrade the software when you upgrade your PC".
On a different tone, is anyone out there running or building any Hartley
motor boats? Richard Hartley was a kiwi whose timeless designs appeared in
the 60's and I'm in the middle of building the 38' New Marksman to be
powered with a new Cummins 6BT59M-330HP. Will be ply on Iroko, sheathed with
epoxy & glass....call me old fashioned but who could build a hull that size
for <£6k!
Owen E
----- Original Message -----
From: Arild Jensen <elnav@XXX.XXX>
To: trawler-world-list <trawler-world-list@XXX.XXX>
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 6:43 PM
Subject: TWL: Computer versus dedicated systems.
> This may be a bit like preaching to the converted or else trying to
> tempt choir boys.
>
> Maptech was one of the early companies to produce charting software.
> They had a really good system running under DOS.
> The program had all the essentials and a few nifty featuers I have not
> seen in later version by any company.
> I could run it on my 386 with 8Mb of ram and a 40 Mb hard drive. The
> computer clock speed was some ridiculous figuer like 12 Mhz
>
> A Pentium I with a 450 Mb hard drive should be blazingly fast running
> that same program.
> But Maptech decided that they should bow to popular demand and come
out
> with a Windows version.
> I became one of their beta testers and for over a year I would test each
> reiteration as they developed it.
>
> Regrettably I would find the system would crash, lock up or otherwise
> fail within half an hour of me starting to test it.
> I wasn't even trying to crash ot. I would try to use it in the same way
> that I had used the DOs version.
> Start up. select the chart, plot a route and save it. Then try and run
> the simulator along the route.
>
> The Windows version always ran a lot slower, caused more grief etc. I
> could not crash the DOS version even when I tried.
> The worst problem had to do with how they indexed the chart numbering.
> NOAA charts were okay but Canadian charts caused a few hiccups.
>
> >From a navigator's point of view, I could not care less what the
> technology inside the computer was.
> I wanted a chart display that showed my vessel position in real time.
> updated one per second, and allowed me to bring up additional charts for
> planning future routes, not just the chart of present locality.
>
> Somehow we have all been snowed by the computer guru's into accepting
> that all computers should multi task and be flexible.
> WHY??
> If you can buy a used 486 laptop running an older O/S for only a few
> hunderd bucks and have the installer configuer that computer to work
as
> a stand alone instrument which starts up fast at a single keypress and
> always recover from a power outage without data loss; why would you
> insist on it doing all sorts of other things.
> You don't expect the echo sounder to make coffee or the radar to make
> toast so why expect the chart plotter to do . . . whatever?
>
> Just my $0.02 Cdn worth
>
> Cheers
>
> Arild
>
>
>
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