The XO Computer for Navigation

[phiggins]

Barco has got Seafarer working properly now on the XO OLPC. Patrick Cannon provided exceptional support to get it working. He should be publishing the new version on their site soon.

My simulator now works with it. If you want to see what it looks like with both AIS and GPS, try out my simulator at: Navigation Aids

Paul

[Kerry]

Paul,
This is really an impressive accomplishment. I didn't even know what AIS was until I started reading this thread to figure out how to do navigation on my XO. I see the SR161 is only $189 so the cost of AIS is even within reason. Assuming the Seafarer/Sugar issues are addressed, do you think you will stick with Ubunto? use the Sugar version? or use wine/SeaClear? Thanks again for your diligent work.
Kerry

[phiggins]

Kerry,

Thanks for the compliment. Yes I think I will stay with Ubuntu, its so much easier to use.

As for which navigation program, Seafarer still has a few issues which I reported to them. It just doesn't measure up to SeaClear yet. Maybe they will improve on it. It does have one nice feature that SeaClear doesn't have, Tides. It shows you all the tide stations and if you click on one it brings up the Tide chart. Rather neat.

Seaclear still has the sound problem on both Sugar and Ubuntu which I just took another crack at fixing without any luck. I never heard any sound out of Seafarer either.

I got one of those SR161 AIS last year and it did seem to work quite well with real targets on lake Ontario. I used a splitter for the AIS and VHF but I think it may cut down the AIS signal significantly. I bought another VHF antenna at the boat show in January so I'm planning to move the AIS onto its own antenna. It'll be neat to see the XO working with real AIS targets but the simulator sure found a lot of bugs. I might enhance the simulator to be a real frontend for Seaclear just to give it sound.

Playing around with the simulator on various navigation program makes me wonder how accurate their CPA/TCPA calculations really are. The simulator calculates the CPA/TCPA too and I can pause everything to see how the navigation program's CPA/TCPA compares with mine. Mine agrees with SeaClear except my TCPA is always 30 seconds later but the CPA is right on. I suspect the author of SeaClear may have subtracted 30 seconds from the TCPA just to be on the safe side. But for Fugawi and SeaFarer my CPA/TCPA never matches theirs. I hope they are right if people start depending on it.

Paul

[phiggins]

Thanks to Cagney we have the sound working now on SeaCLear running under wine on both Ubuntu and Sugar.

Who would have thought to read the SeaClear manual?

In the manual it says:

; Default warning sound .wav file:
; If no path is specified, it is assumed to be located in the Windows directory.
Sound1=DING.WAV ; Default Warning Sound
; To replace default sound with other .wav file:
Sound XTE R=FileName ; For XTE Right Warning Sound
Sound XTE L= FileName ; For XTE Left Warning Sound
Sound NMEA= FileName ; For No NMEA Warning Sound
Sound Dpt=FileName ; For Depth Warning Sound
Sound AIS CPA=Filename ; For AIS CPA Warning Sound
Use “NONE” as filename to disable a specific sound warning.

All you have to do is find a copy of DING.WAV. I found a copy on my PC and copied it to my KINGSTON memory stick and put it in the XO and copied it to the wine windows directory:

cp /media/KINGSTON/ding.wav ~/.wine/drive_c/windows

If you can't find ding.wav just find a .wav file and copy to the windows directory then update SEACLEAR_2.INI file. Find the Sound1=DING.WAV (around line 73) and change to whatever .wav you found.

Also note: I had to start the wine configuator: winecfg
and go into Audio and make sure Alsa was checked. You can check if its working by pressing the Test button.

Paul

[agkirk]

Paul, Great! There is a ding.wav at Sound Effects - Beeping Sounds - Free File Download for those traveling with only a XO.

Their HyperBlip.wav is a much better alert tone.

[phiggins]

Alan,

Thanks. I've also put ding.wav in the latest copy of the simulator at
Navigation Aids .

[phiggins]

I decided to use the HyprBlip.wav as the AIS CPA sound and the ding.wav as the no GPS signal sound and found that you have to explicility specify the path to them in SEACLEAR_2.INI file. Just putting them in the windows directory is not enough. So I put :
Sound1=
Sound NMEA=C:\Windows\ding.wav
Sound AIS CPA=C:\Windows\HyprBlip.wav

Paul

[Raven RawsonPH]

Paul, et al,
It's fantastic that you folks have found a nav use for this great little computer. No doubt this will generate even more interest in it and the cause for which it was built. Being a former computer teacher, I felt it was my duty to contribute at least one.
Does anyone know where to get the XO solar panel, or which ones on the market will work? Also, as everyone probably noted already, some are being sold on eBay. I see eight today.
...Tom

[phiggins]

Tom,

Try here:

Peripherals - OLPC

[agkirk]

Paul, Put the sounds in and they improve SeaClear operation. Now I see (hear) more of the AIS alerts. I don't see the red circles you mentioned before. I do see the fairland? change to a hook on the end, but can't seem to figure out that relation to the AIS alert. Also I note that the Indian Brave seems to stand still for a long period of time (North of Silihole? then when the PolarTexas comes abreast that point the Indian Brave jumps a couple of miles South. The WSF Wala Wala alerts but doesn't appear to be on a collison course. How was the sims data set generated? Do you manually input the data? I'm thinking about going to Umbuntu, I hate all that typing of strings too. I keep meaning to ask you about the lack of a spell checker for this forum when using the XO. Do you know of a way to get one running on the XO. The OPRA spell checker works, so there is at least a dictionjary somewhere on this machine.

Alan

[phiggins]

Alan,

Those circles are awfully hard to see on the XO but they are there. Also, there is a lot of background stuff on that chart that the circles get lost in it. If you pause the script when you get an alert, study the screen and you should see the circles. It helps to ZOOM into 200%.

As for the ships not being on a collision course when you get the alert, it all depends on what you have the CPA set to. If its set at 1nm then it will alert you when a ship will come within 1nm. If you want to have the alert for nearly a collision set the CPA to say .1nm. I know when I was crossing the Gulf Stream to Mexico from Cuba at night we felt that someone within 1nm was awfully damn close and should be watched closely. We didn't have AIS then just radar. Maybe if we had AIS I would have set the alert to .1nm and just set a range warning at 1nm.

I assume the script is just someone's recording of all the AIS targets and is not modified. I just take whatever mmsi you select and change the AIS messages for it to GPS RMC messages so they become your ship. Some of the targets jump because they move everytime there is an AIS message. So if there isn't a message for awhile, they will have moved quite far when the next message comes in and will appear to take a giant step.

What program are you running that you need a spell checker for? I would really recommend you go to Ubuntu. So much better easier to work with. I've ordered a 8Gig SD card and will reinstall again, its getting easier.

Paul

[agkirk]

Ah! 200X I was in a dim hotel room without my glasses, what was I thinking? I do have the alert range set to 1 nm, I'll give it another try with something smaller. I do like the UUGGA! horn sound so I was entertained by all the AIS commotion.
When I use this forums Reply block on the XO, the spell checker icon doesn't show. I'm on a PC now and it is OK. I'm going to try to install Ubuntu this weekend. The OLPC instructions you referenced indicate I should partition my 8GB SD, any recommendations as to the size and number of partitions?

Thanks,

Alan

[phiggins]

Alan,
I just got my 8GB SDHC card and went through the complete install including installing wine and SeaClear and it took about two hours so I'm documenting how to get there:

First I followed the instructions of installing Ubuntu from compressed Files at: OLPC News Forum: Installing Ubuntu using compressed files

You have to have a developers key so if you don't have one follow the link in the instructions to get one. It takes a couple of days to get it. Also, the compressed files are huge (208M) so have lots of room on a memory stick to download them.

Just follow these instructions and remember to put /sbin/ in front of the commands except mount. Also remember the umount command is "umount". I partitioned the SD card as only one large partition.

When you get to the part talking about the olpc.fth file, its talking about a file you have to put in the boot directory of the new SD card and they give you a couple of options to get this file. To make it easy I'm attaching my olpc.fth file (with a .TXT filetype, download and rename without the .TXT) to use. It uses the the Down arrow on the leftside of the XO screen. So just before you issue the umount /mnt/OLPCroot, copy the the olpc.fth to the new SD card:
cp /media/KINGSTON/olpc.fth /mnt/OLPCRoot/boot

KINGSTON is my memstick, substitute wherever you downloaded the olpc.fth.

Once you get all the instructions done then power off and hold the down arrow on the leftside of XO display (if you used my olpc.fth) then press power on and it should boot up Ubuntu. Sometimes it takes a few attempts to get it to work. You may get a screen with a checker pattern or it may just stop. I haven't figured out why, it usually works after a couple of attempts.

You should get a long string of commands that ends asking you to login. Enter: olpc and then the password: olpcolpc

Then to start up enter: startxfce4
the screen will flash for a few seconds then come with all the icons.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The first thing you must do after startup is connect to the internet. There is a small icon in the lower right corner, click on it to see all the wireless connections and pick yours. It will then ask for the password and it will also bring up a message box asking you to select a password for the keyring. I don't know what that is but enter some password twice and REMEMBER IT because you will need it again.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Once you have an internet connection you must install something to give you access to the SD cards and memory sticks in your USB ports. First start a terminal session, by clicking black square at top of screen, then
Enter:
sudo apt-get install gnome-mount
reply Y when it asks you to.

sudo is the superuser command like su but its entered with every command that needs it. The first time you use it, it will ask for your login password (which is olpcolpc). If you issue another sudo, you won't have to enter the password again for about 20 minutes then it will ask for it again

apt-get is the equivalent of yum on Sugar/Fedora.

To mount SD, Memory sticks right click on the icon for them on the desktop and select "Mount Volume".
------------------------------------------------
Install Python dependencies to run simulator:
sudo apt-get install python-pygame
sudo apt-get install python-gtk2
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Installing Wine:
You can install an old version, 0.9.46 , of wine just by entering:
sudo apt-get install wine

If you want the newest version open the browser (world icon at top of screen) and go to Wine HQ - Wine for Debian based distributions and follow the instructions to add the repository's key to your system's list of trusted APT keys and then add the repository to your system's list of APT sources. This is a Ubuntu Gutsy (7.10) so use that one. You can use Copy and Paste to put these commands in your terminal window.

after doing those commands then issue:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine

Start winecfg and make sure operating system is XP and also go into Audio and select ALSA.
------------------------------------------------------------
Installing SeaClear:
wine /media/KINGSTON/Downloads/sc_setup.exe

Set up the com ports to use:
$ cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 com1

Copy the ding.wav and HyperBlip to the windows directory:
cp /media/KINGSTON/Downloads/ding.wav ~/.wine/drive_c/windows
cp /media/KINGSTON/Downloads/HyprBlip.wav ~/.wine/drive_c/windows

Copy Maps into SeaClear directory:
cp /media/KINGSTON/CDN\ Charts/*.* ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/SeaClear/charts
KNGSTON/CDN\ Charts are where mine were, substitute yours.

Load maps:
wine "c:\Program Files\SeaClear\MapCal_2.exe"
Tools...AutoList..Scan for New Charts

Start SeaClear:
wine "c:\Program Files\SeaClear\SeaClear_2.exe"

Setup Sounds SeaClear INI
vim ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/SeaClear/SEACLEAR_2.INI
:73
I
Sound AIS CPA=C:\WINDOWS\HyprBlip.wav
esc
ZZ
--------------------------
update locate:
sudo updatedb
-------------------

Whewww

Paul

[agkirk]

Paul, Thanks. You have answered all of my install question, at least the ones I had after my initial read of the OLPC instructions.

[phiggins]

Alan,

You're welcome. Regarding the simulator try to get the latest copy V2.0.3 at Navigation Aids

It makes it a lot easier to set the com ports and won't destroy your real GPS connection for SeaClear. It issues sudo commands so when you start it, it will ask for your password: olpcolpc

Paul