[aprssig] Slashdot article

[Robert Bruninga]

>>> aa8ei at cinci.rr.com 1/4/05 4:47:33 PM >>>
>...remember that APRS ... does not need ...GPS to be 
>[very valuable as a] management tool [for] all kinds of 
>information....  We're going to need a professional quality 
>client developed this year....

WinAPRS, seems to be still in the game.  XASTIR is very 
current and take a look at the New APRSscs which is being
built from the ground up to implement everything that APRS is 
supposed to do, and to do it right.  It also has its own 
complete USA maping system built in.  Just download and go 
(though it is 13M!).

>What counts is that the operation and display of the client 
>appears the same to the operator for any OS...

Yes, that has been the goal of APRS all along, but when we
went public with the SPEC, the ground rules of the TAPR
committee was that the spec could not say anything about
presentation.  I FELT THIS WAS AN ABOIMINABLE
MISTAKE, but the result has been a tower of babble that
fortunately the above authors and others are trying to 
merge towards more commonality for the end users.
 
>Just say I wanted to send complete stations to Sri Lanka, 
>what would I send in hardware and software to establish 
>a useful field network? How would I train operators? 

Yep, that is a good example..

>APRS, in simplest form, is very useful. All the fancy stuff 
>makes it better. But,... time... to get back to basics. 

Yep, APRS is not an end in itself.  It is simply a tool for
human to human communications.  I was so fed up with
BBS and PBBS's in the 1990s and not being able to do 
any real-time digital communications especially in support
of real-time-in-the-field needs is why I came up with APRS
in the first place.

So thanks for the reminders...

Bob