Ohhh goody, PDA software price wars!

The great thing about software these days is that a
good programmer can have a nice little business over
the Internet so long as it's cheap to acquire customers.

The soaring community is a small market and the racing/cross-count
ry segment is a small proportion of that small market.
But, it's also pretty close-knit (with the Internet
it's truly global). So, with essentially no cost of
goods and very little marketing or distribution cost,
a team of one or two programmers can earn a decent
living. Say, $150/copy (net) x 1-2,000 new copies per
year yields a pretty solid, if not extravagant, income.
Even the upgrade business isn't too bad at $50/copy
if you can keep a significant portion of your overall
installed base renewing each year.

Free software works, but only to the extent that you
can keep a community of talented volunteers interested
in continuing to innovate and support the product (the
latter being the tougher part since programmers tend
not to like all the administrative BS associate with
product support).

Personally, I don't find a few hundred bucks to be
all that much to pay for what these products do in
terms of increasing the enjoyment and safety of cross-country
and racing flights - not to mention the potential for
improvement in overall pilot performance. I bought
a copy of WinPilot Pro last year and paid for copy
of SeeYou mobile. Consider it a subsidy for continued
development. They're both quite good pieces of software
and I hope they both prove successful in the market.


At 16:48 20 February 2004, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Bruce Greeff wrote:
Gary Boggs wrote:

Yeh, I'm sure sorry to hear about this new price too.
I just spent
$375 for
a copy.

Question is - was/is it worth the $375 - if so be
happy. If it is not,
why did you buy it?

Gary should be happy, as you say. Free updates for
a whole year now,
instead of only 6 months.


Good luck to the guys who are getting it cheap, but
remember that you
eventually get what you pay for in software.

If this were really true, it would be easy to buy good
softwa just
pick the most expensive! But, I sit here using Netscape
7.1, a free
browser, email client, and web page composer that is
at least the equal
to IE 6 and Outlook Express, and without so many
security issues.
Mozilla 1.6 is even better, and just as free. And look
at how many
corporations use Linux.

It still costs time/money
to develop this stuff. YOu can discount to buy market
share, or be
chaeper because you live in a low cost location, but
there are limits.

Aye, and that's the rub: just where are those limits?
We won't know
until people stretch them a little, will we?

So if the price becomes too low to support - especially
in a fragmented
market, people start leaving, or stop developing...

True in general, but in this _particular_ case, can
we say $250US is too
low? With Strepla's and CU's entry into the market,
I suggest they think
not. And after CU's success with their flight display
software, I
suspect it isn't.
--
-----
change 'netto' to 'net' to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Is anyone working on Linux flight software?

I've been looking at some really neat PIII "Car Computers" with 7 inch
screens that run on a very modest amount of 12V DC current - a 7.5 AH
battery should run one 6 hours or more. They cost about the same as a PDA
but have bigger screens, more performance and are infinitely customizable.

Bill Daniels

I can't wait until the day when our entire panel will be a screen all with
the other instruments, and info just superimposed on the moving map that
will be landstat photos of what we are seeing out the canopy.

--
Gary Boggs
3650 Airport Dr.
Hood River, Oregon, USA
97031-9613
"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
...
Is anyone working on Linux flight software?

I've been looking at some really neat PIII "Car Computers" with 7 inch
screens that run on a very modest amount of 12V DC current - a 7.5 AH
battery should run one 6 hours or more. They cost about the same as a PDA
but have bigger screens, more performance and are infinitely customizable.

Bill Daniels

"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
I can't wait until the day when our entire panel will be a screen all with
the other instruments, and info just superimposed on the moving map that
will be landstat photos of what we are seeing out the canopy.


Essentially, this could be done now. These 12V computer systems are the
same as the most powerful laptops and come with the same array of I/O ports
like USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394. They can use hard drives or Flash Memory
virtual drives to make them more rugged. A single 7.5 AH SLA battery would
power the thing for more than 6 hours.

You would use an "Air Data" sensor that measures pitot/static pressure,air
temp and TE probe pressure. Add a USB GPS engine and you have all you need.
From this, compute and display IAS, TAS, Altitude, Vario (TE, Average, Netto
etc.) - use vertical tape displays if you prefer. Of course, the glide
computer with the moving map would be in the center of the display.
Updating the panel would become a matter of just updating the software.

The display could be a thin, daylight readable LCD that hinges down over the
existing panel containing the old round instruments. If the newfangled
computer goes belly up, just lift the screen up to reveal the old panel.

Bill Daniels

Forget the screen and go right to heads up. Superimposed or imaged onto your
sunglasses or whatever. Biggest problem with PDA's is the touch screen
thing - I like big round knobs that have solid clicks I can turn with my big
mitts. I hate poking (and squinting) at the iPaq, not very clever in my
opinion. Better yet with buttons on the stick and flap handle.

Best audio ever is the three-chord tone from an SB-8; Ilec should bring that
back for the -10 - it's like angels from Heaven in a climb.

Jim


"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
...

"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
I can't wait until the day when our entire panel will be a screen all
with
the other instruments, and info just superimposed on the moving map that
will be landstat photos of what we are seeing out the canopy.


Essentially, this could be done now. These 12V computer systems are the
same as the most powerful laptops and come with the same array of I/O
ports
like USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394. They can use hard drives or Flash Memory
virtual drives to make them more rugged. A single 7.5 AH SLA battery
would
power the thing for more than 6 hours.

You would use an "Air Data" sensor that measures pitot/static pressure,air
temp and TE probe pressure. Add a USB GPS engine and you have all you
need.
From this, compute and display IAS, TAS, Altitude, Vario (TE, Average,
Netto
etc.) - use vertical tape displays if you prefer. Of course, the glide
computer with the moving map would be in the center of the display.
Updating the panel would become a matter of just updating the software.

The display could be a thin, daylight readable LCD that hinges down over
the
existing panel containing the old round instruments. If the newfangled
computer goes belly up, just lift the screen up to reveal the old panel.

Bill Daniels

"Jim Phoenix" wrote in message
...
Snip-------

Better yet with buttons on the stick and flap handle.

Snip------

Jim

Cool idea - buttons on stick and flap handle. Limited vocabulary voice
commands would work too.

Bill Daniels



"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
...

"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
I can't wait until the day when our entire panel will be a screen all
with
the other instruments, and info just superimposed on the moving map
that
will be landstat photos of what we are seeing out the canopy.


Essentially, this could be done now. These 12V computer systems are the
same as the most powerful laptops and come with the same array of I/O
ports
like USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394. They can use hard drives or Flash Memory
virtual drives to make them more rugged. A single 7.5 AH SLA battery
would
power the thing for more than 6 hours.

You would use an "Air Data" sensor that measures pitot/static
pressure,air
temp and TE probe pressure. Add a USB GPS engine and you have all you
need.
From this, compute and display IAS, TAS, Altitude, Vario (TE, Average,
Netto
etc.) - use vertical tape displays if you prefer. Of course, the glide
computer with the moving map would be in the center of the display.
Updating the panel would become a matter of just updating the software.

The display could be a thin, daylight readable LCD that hinges down over
the
existing panel containing the old round instruments. If the newfangled
computer goes belly up, just lift the screen up to reveal the old panel.

Bill Daniels

Cool idea - buttons on stick and flap handle. Limited vocabulary voice
commands would work too.

Bill Daniels

And when it heard certain words, it could activate the robot arm to mop your
brow with a cool cloth, whisper calming sounds into your ear, and drop a
valium into your drink, 8-0

Keith

Bill Daniels wrote:
...
Limited vocabulary voice commands would work too.
...

Only for english speaking pilots with the proper (i.e. probably american) accent.
Definetely not for me. Anyway I hate to have to speak to a machine.

In my ideal world I'd like to see a single large flat panel screen smack in
the middle of my panel with the various companies vying for who can write
the best program to use for displaying the various things you guys have
brought up. It holds all sorts of possibilites and with multiple windows
open would even mean that you could run programs from different
manufacturers on that same screen.

This nonsense of having to buy a latest and greatest hardware gizmo to go
with the software is crazy. One big screen would be much easier to
read....maybe I'm just getting too old to see the damn little things! Maybe
they could even agree on a single box (hard drive?) to drive the thing as
well bringing it down to just the software competition.

Anyone know if the technology is currently good enough to make this work
i.e. flat screens wrt current drain, ease of use in high sun environments,
etc? I have no expertise in this whatsoever. Just dreamin'.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

Hi,

I agree that a large screen would be very nice. In my day job I sell
industrial automation equipment. Computer Dynamics has large 7 inch or 10
inch industrial computers that run Windows CE. They are cool, but the
current draw is much too high for use in a glider. I think we'll have to
wait a while yet. Also, they generally run on 24V so a power converter would
be required. That is not a huge obstacle though.

Paul Remde

"Kilo Charlie" wrote in message
news:id4_b.24001$o52.18383@fed1read02...
In my ideal world I'd like to see a single large flat panel screen smack
in
the middle of my panel with the various companies vying for who can write
the best program to use for displaying the various things you guys have
brought up. It holds all sorts of possibilites and with multiple windows
open would even mean that you could run programs from different
manufacturers on that same screen.

This nonsense of having to buy a latest and greatest hardware gizmo to go
with the software is crazy. One big screen would be much easier to
read....maybe I'm just getting too old to see the damn little things!
Maybe
they could even agree on a single box (hard drive?) to drive the thing as
well bringing it down to just the software competition.

Anyone know if the technology is currently good enough to make this work
i.e. flat screens wrt current drain, ease of use in high sun environments,
etc? I have no expertise in this whatsoever. Just dreamin'.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix