| Author | Message | |||
     David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 218 Registered: 01-2004 |
Yes, Starpath has a very tight licensing scheme. Is it overly restrictive? I guess you have to consider the market size. Could fifty circulating bootleg copies wipe out their online sales? What Starpath does very effectively is enforce the conditions of their license, which is one license to one person. That is not unusual. The way they enforce it is unusual. You get three installs keyed to some unique data on each computer and that's it. I would have thought a reinstall would have been possible on the same computer, but if you say it's not I believe you. I'm not particularly surprised that an OS upgrade invalidated the license. Almost every software protection scheme in the past has been abandoned because it caused legitimate users more trouble than it was worth. I think their rationale for three installs for one person is reasonable: desktop, laptop and one spare. And it's not like the software is exorbitantly expensive. When I looked for simulators in 2003, I was looking at licensing fees in the thousands, If I recall correctly. Once you use the simulator to become proficient though, I doubt the licensed individual has much legitimate use for the simulator. I expect College policy is to honor licensing restrictions, so I would not attempt to make one license stretch to cover a whole class of students even if I could. For me it's a moot point. Will their tight licensing scheme make them more willing to discount for quantity to a legitimate school with reorder potential every year? I hope so. If there is a better simulator out there at a reasonable cost please point me to it. I found two sub-$200 PC simulators in a quick search, ordered both, and theirs was the better one. | |||
| Ted Lavino Moderator Username: tlavino Post Number: 73 Registered: 01-2006 |
Best of luck with StarPath. Its been my experience that their licensing scheme is overly restrictive. You are permitted to install the software 3 times, period. After that you need to purchase a new license. Found this out the hard way after wiping my hard drive to do an upgrade of the OS (which is best practice) and could not re-install the software back onto the same computer. | |||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 215 Registered: 01-2004 |
I wrote to the Starpath radar simulator guys asking for a package deal that will get each of you your own radar simulator software. We'll see what happens. I told them what I was able to pay and how many copies I needed. | |||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 174 Registered: 01-2004 |
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| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 172 Registered: 01-2004 |
I have a GPS (and other data) simulator running on one computer talking to a second computer running a diagnostic program to decode the NMEA 183 data. The simulator can be set to run a series of waypoints or can be actively steered. This represents the helm of the boat and sends appropriate data to a charting program or other navigation device such as an autopilot. Rose Point Coastal explorer is installed on the second computer as well and shows the progress of the simulated vessel on vector or raster charts. We have a real chartplotter purchased for the course, but I have not located it yet. I installed an AIS (Automatic Isentification System) system antenna and receiver on my boat Sunday and was able to observe traffic around the Ports of LA/LB. I watched tugs back ships out and the pilot boats come and go delivering and picking up pilots. I am going to try to capture the data stream so we can watch the same thing in class. I have three different radar simulators, one of which is pretty realistic and puts you into situations with boats on collision courses and you have to maneuver accordingly. I intend to use the computer projector to put all this up in front of the class as well as somehow equipping other computers to run simultaneous simulations during labs. I have been investigating geocaching as a way for people to get GPS practice during labs and as homework. A preliminary syllabus is ready for critique and I am working out a class schedule for days vs subjects. That is going to be a little lose until I see what we can accomplish. I have more detailed lecture notes for the first few sessions and less detailed notes for the rest of the semester. The reading list and reference list on the website is starting to come together. |
An Active Radar Reflector and Radar Alarm