Communications Specifications for the GlobalSat DG-100 GPS DataLogger

Time for one of my annual blog posts.

I recently bought a GlobalSat DG-100 GPS datalogger, which is a device that records your GPS position over time, so that you can later review those data, and do all sorts of fun things. I specifically wanted it for aviation, so you can review your flight track, and see how good your navigation is and how far off your desired track you wandered.

There are Windows drivers for the device, and only a Windows utility for extracting the recorded tracks and altering it’s preferences. Normally this would preclude a Mac user like me from buying it, however, the nice people at GlobalSat have published the specifications for communicating with the device, and some people have made their own apps for talking to it. There’s a Windows .net application for it and a linux project for talking to it as well.

I’m in the early stages of writing a Cocoa app which will do the same for Mac OS X users.

Anyway – The spec was a bit dry, being a .txt file – so I’ve spruced it up a bit and put it into a web page for Google to index.

[edit] – Good lord, Google indexed this post in less than 17 minutes!

2 comments

1. Stefano says:

   Hello. I just ordered this little toy.
   I am a Mac and Linux user but also have an XP box for my son’s videogames, so I planned to use XP to download the gps logs.
   Now I read your post and I think this is an excellent news.
   Just a question: where will we find your app once you have finished it?

   Thanks for your help
   S.

   March 10th, 2009 at 4:11 pm

2. Diggory says:

   Thanks for your comment Stefano – alas I’m so disorganised that there is no schedule for the release of that app, but should it be released, you will find it at monkeyfood.com/software

   Diggory

   June 13th, 2009 at 12:56 am