Hello Charles.

06 Sep 03 00:27, you wrote to me:

 CA> Might be a good way for yuppies to find out if they _really_
 CA> own a "sport UTILITY vehicle" or not. :-)

I thought it was a Cadillac.

 CA> I think the radio/DVD players still rank highest in causes of
 CA> driver inattention caused accidents.

So then my unit would increase safety on the road seeing it has no
CD/DVD-ROM.  And here I thought I was only being power conservative. 
Bonus!

 MK>> Mind you I've seen, and sheepishly admit to doing in the
 MK>> past, maps unfolded by drivers trying to figure out where
 MK>> the heck they are and where they are going, which takes the
 MK>> attention away from what should be the top priority at that
 MK>> moment.

 CA> Wife did that on a trip to Wisconsin and we got pulled over by
 CA> the state police. :-\

How much did that end up costing?  Perhaps I could promote the unit as a
cost saving device.

 CA> Mercedes has something similar I think?

I believe so.  I can't afford one of those either.  :-/

 CA> I've thought more of these things should be turned to face the
 CA> passenger side of the vehicle with just a 'scan' button for the
 CA> radio mounted on the steering wheel. I think one American car I
 CA> was in not long ago does have radio controls on the steering
 CA> wheel 'spokes'?

Could be.  Recently I have only seen these on boats.  My personal
experience with GPS was surveying many, many years ago when GPS was in it's
infancy.  Trimble lent the University of Saskatchewan one to test out for
Lithoprobe which was a geophysical survey to map the continental crust of
North America, although I think there was a European version as well (don't
quote me on that).  It was interesting but limited by the lack of
satellites.  No moving maps that is for sure.  To my knowledge we were the
first to do anything like this but if not then we definetly were close to
being first.  That particular survey was in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. 
Years later I wired a marine DGPS into a laptop which found it's way down
to Houston Texas.  No moving maps but perhaps it does now.  I really ought
find out if it still works.  Probably the reciever and antenna but I have
doubts about the laptop.  The OS was Linux, Slackware to be more precise,
3.4 if I remember correctly.  It was fun but I'd really like to try
something different.

Maurice

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.4.7