The NMEA Mystery

[DeepFrz]

Problems, political, hmmm, just like the rest of the world's problems.

hello sailor...
I understand that the NMEA 2000 standards cost around $10 K...

Raymarine is listed on the NMEA website as compliant when they clearly are not NMEA 2000 compliant. Money talks...blah, de-blah, blah...

[Sandero]

Raymarine has all the faults of a corporate monopoly.

[hellosailor]

Paul, I understand what you are saying and I don't mean to say the "little things" are insignificant. But buffering data, high speed interfaces....I know what I paid for a serial-to-parallel printer converter with 64K (K!) of memory 20 years ago. These days? A $20 router has more power than a thousand dollar box did seven years ago. Does the store and forward and all the rest at gigabit speeds for $50, and that's way faster than NMEA2000 is running. As is USB 2.0.

So...I guess the only real question is whether there is any larger need (beyond jef's <G>) and whether it would take more than gluing a couple of $20 chipsets together for him to get a "sniffer" that could deal with what is still, essentially, just a serial data flow that *might* be considered as just a slow USB bus. After all, the sniffer doesn't need to deal with the amperage levels, it can just be a high impedance device that blocks them while reading the data.

If there's a "USB sniffer" out there...who knows, that and some power protection might be enough to do the job. Not a full interface--but a working sniffer. I think we've all seen bigger rabbits come out of smaller cheaper hats.<G>

"Hey Rockie, wanna see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?!"
"Bullwiiiinkle !"

[Pblais]

But buffering data, high speed interfaces....I know what I paid for a serial-to-parallel printer converter with 64K (K!) of memory 20 years ago.

Then go for it. The bottom line comes down to what you can buy and what you can make work when there really are no standards. If there is anything I'm saying that is it. There are no standards because no vendors want them except the small players that want to hang on. My assertion is NMEA 2000 is vapour.

Consumers in most cases don't care and in fact the fully integrated systems work much better than the old systems. It's just a fact that the market conditions favor the approach of Raymarine. They really could get most of the money.

I can't say I like it at all and I don't think it is all for the better but it is the way it is headed. As it stands now, you can still buy older technology and still get there without more trouble than any one else. The fact is high speed proproetary networks transmitting a proprietary porotocal is nothing to take on with a small wallet. You could spend more than it's worth.

Just because you could connect your toaster to a USB port does not mean it would make toast better or even as well. Sometimes the magic does not actually work.