The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Wednesday, February 05, 2003

Yet more preparations for war driving

Yet more wardriving equipment. I borrowed a GPS unit from Gregory to hook to the laptop. Yet after an hour of fooling around I could not get anything from the GPS unit. Not one byte of data.

Searching around for a possible answer, I read where you might need a NULL modem cable to talk successfully to a GPS unit. Great! While I have a NULL modem adaptor, it's buried with the rest of the computer equipment that I've yet to unpack. Even if I had that, the adaptor itself is a DB-25 form factor, while the cable (and serial port on the laptop) are both DE-9† form factors so that would require yet more adaptors.

But it's a specially constructed cable for the unit so you would think the wiring would be correct. So, using that logic (and not wanting to dig through boxes looking for adaptors) I tried hooking the GPS up to my older laptop.

It worked. I can see data spewing forth from the GPS unit.

But the serial port on the new laptop doesn't appear to work.

Bummer.

† Although commonly referred to as “DB-9,” DE-9 is the correct designation—the letters refer to the physical size of the connector while the number referrs to the number of pins. A VGA monitor cable uses a DE-15 connector, for instance.

Obligatory Picture

[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]

Obligatory Contact Info

Obligatory Feeds

Obligatory Links

Obligatory Miscellaneous

You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.

You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that important.

It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name, symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these pages is a protected and/or trademarked entity, the sole property of its owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied.

Copyright © 1999-2024 by Sean Conner. All Rights Reserved.