CLever

Does anyone know of where I can buy Navi software for our (USA) system that will work here in Europe? I'm having a very difficult time locating the software if it even exists. They (European companies) tell me that I would have to get it in the States because theirs only work with European systems. I've contacted Acura and Alpine with no luck either way. I know this is a shot in the dark, but I guess it doesn't hurt to ask.

Any help is appreciated.

Bill Faure

The GPS satellites that the CL uses are in orbit over North America. You can't receive the signal in Europe. Even if you had a DVD of Europe the system would not advance the display as you drive. Without that what good would it be?

chikai

Oh...that sucks...

just make your Navi into a DVD player (w/ the RGB connectors) Girls love that kinda shit...especially those wearing Liederhosen

on a side note: Taking some pics of the CL on the Nurburgring.

kensteele

Bill, I was unaware of this. Is there someplace in particular you're getting this information from?

EricL

I guess those GPS guided munitions that we used on Serbia had the proper exemptions


:P

kensteele

No I was thinking that Bill might be thinking that the Acura Navi will ignore coordinates fed to it that are not within a certain longitude or latitude. If you cross into Canada, doesn't the map AND the guidance quit?

We all know that "The satellites are travelling around the world 11,000 nautical miles high in carefully controlled orbits at a speed that means they will make a complete orbit twice a day. Each orbit takes 11 hours and 58 minutes, so like the stars they will seem to drift 4 minutes a day. The complete constellation consists of a minimum of 21 SV's and 3 working spares. Currently there are 27 total satellites in the sky and it is possible that there could be as many as 31 or 32. There are 6 orbits with multiple satellites in each orbit as depicted in the drawing at the [bottom] of the page. Each orbit is inclined 55 degree from the equator and thus there are no orbits that go directly over the poles, but certainly a great many orbits can be seen from the poles or anywhere else on the earth. The goal of the system is to always provide at least 4 satellites somewhere in the visible sky. In practice there are usually many more than this, sometimes as many as 12."

EricL

Ken,

WE could speculate and quibble all day about what Bill really meant. I'm sure when he returns, he will elaborate.

"The GPS satellites that the CL uses are in orbit over North America. You can't receive the signal in Europe,” is the quote that caught my attention.

1. The GPS satellites are in a low orbit and are NOT geostationary as your diagram clearly shows. There is the matter of spot beams used with Direct TV etc (also geostationary satellites) that further limit the coverage. The "context" just struck me as funny as the term "orbit over North America….” is "generally" used in the context of geosynchronous orbits.

2. As far as going into Canada: Since the Acura (Alpine) unit is loading firmware (code) and map data, it would be silly to think that just because the current code and data doesn't cover and/or work in a given region, it couldn't be programmed to with a different DVD. IMO, if Acura/Alpine wanted to, they would only have to supply a Europe disk. Honestly, can you think of any good reason to put in EXTRA firmware (or hardware) that would prevent flexibility and reusability of the software? I worked on KeyMap and we didn't put in HARD code to block certain regions


Ken, the nav unit’s ability to upload code and data from a NEW DVD is at the heart of the matter.

soopa

heres the story. simple and short.

you can get a GPS signal anywhere.


BUT... right now we only have mapping DVD's for the US.


the next DVD SUPPOSEDLY has Canada mapped as well. Just like the old Hard Drive units did.



But no, there is no plans that i know of to make an Acura DVD for markets other then north america.

soopa

oh and Ken, the guidance DOESNT stop once your in canada.


The system still knows your latitude/longitude... and if you put in a US address while your in canada it will give you a pretty good estimate of the mileage to your destination. It starts the mapping at the CLOSEST mapped point to your location.


But ya, when your in say, Toronto. It shows the cursor over where Toronto would be on the map (north of the lake)


The 99TL navi system (hard drive based - not dvd - but same system) did have mapping for Canada...

Assuming you had, say, the Northeast region on your hard drive of course.


But regardless... the system works 100% properly no matter where you are in North America. It's only shortcoming is lack of map data.

einsatz

I wonder how much of the Acura Navigation System's code can in fact be downloaded from the DVD. Is it all on the DVD? Or is there some code built-in to the unit?

I'm just thinking that maybe the Navi used for the US has certain assumptions built in dealing with general traffic practices, etc... Like driving on the right side vs left side of the road and such.

EricL

You need a boot loader and they are the ones that decide how much of the firmware can be altered.

So at a minimum, you need some "boot" software to load the code.

There could be some I/O and other code that may be "permanent", but this is just speculation.

Technically, there is "micro code" in tons of devices and the choice between a small micro controller or a gate array can make this fuzzy.

The general idea is to NOT limit the ability of a device to work in a variety of ways; in general, the nav/DVD code size is going to be tiny compared to the data.

IMO, our current Navi is pretty lean (I'm happy with it for now) in "lastest and greatest features" department and I don't think that it would matter which side of the street you were driving on. I've noticed that my unit will happily find the position of the car relative to the boundaries of a wide 3- or 4-lane road. It currently isn't smart enough to denote one-way streets or controlled intersections (tell me if I have dumb software).