At 23:30 04 December 2004, Tim Newport-Peace wrote:

Usage of the DOS programs under later operating has
been a problem for
some time, not made any easier by laptops that have
no serial port and
using DOS software via a USB Serial adapter is problematic
at best.

This problem as been recognised for some time by GFAC
and in the current
version of the FR Specification Document (available
from the IGC web
pages) it was required that for all recorders, Windows
Download and
Validation Software in the form of a DLL is produced
by 1st July 2004.

The DLL could be incorporated into any commercial software
(Tasknav
SeeYou etc.) to allow these functions to be performed
under windows and
a Stand-alone program written by Marc Ramsey is avail
from the IGC web
page http://www.fai.org:81/gliding/gnss/freeware.asp


Thankyou, Tim and Marc. It is reassuring to know that
the problems are at least recognized. I don't envy
you the headaches this must involve.


I would encourage owners of other manufacturer's products
to email their
manufacturer and apply pressure on them to fulfil this
requirement to
provide Windows Support.


Yes. But equally, the third-party software providers
[like SeeYou] should be encouraged to ensure that their
download software is and remains fully compatible with
FAI validity checking requirements. I suspect that
in practice more people like to download with full
analysis software rather than download first with hardware
manufacturer's programs and then open into analysis
packages.

Ian