Got two 6620s for $20 each on EBay, and two memory expansion modules for $10 a pop. This thread rocks - so much info on these devices.
Anyone get one with a GPS out there yet? I understand that it's internal to the unit - a hidden PCMCIA slot supports it, going by the documentation.
I liked the idea of "wardriving" with a 6620 as a dashboard PC.
There's that line in the adapter socket which can be polled digitally - many cars have onboard diagnostic ports that communicate the car's status by brief "on" voltage swings - three swings means x engine parameter, and the swings that come after it are the value of tha parameter. I'd be willing to bet that conditioning and buffering this signal to a digital 1 or 0 would be easy, after which you connect the charger port input wire to the conditioned signal from the engine. A short program in VB would be all you need to have verbose event reporting about the mechanical status of your car's engine.
And, of course, if you're the lucky contestant who got a GPS module with his Norand, that would be special in a dashboard PC. My sister just gave me her copy of Delorme's "Streets and Cities" (or something like that), and I understand that this program is GPS-aware. Step aside, UPS guy, I'll navigate!
Another use for the GPS if one exists in your 6620 is a variation on orienteering, where someone gives you map coordinates (degrees, minutes and seconds of lat and long) and you have to find the spot with your GPS - which here in metro Denver might mean climbing down or up a cliff, burrowing thru snow, or in the case of one intrepid crew, rapelling into abandoned ICBM silos. Sounds like fun.
