Originally Posted by Beer Runner

Microsoft........now that explains the odd things that happen to mine. Now I have the answer. Why in the world would they use this OS?

ALL of them do. (Garmin, Rand, PC Miler, Tom Tom, WorldNav...)

"Why in the world" you ask. The reason is because none of them code or manufacture 100% of the system. These units (just like your television or a Ford Mustang, or YOUR truck, or your house, or an iPhone, blah, blah, etc, etc) are a HYBRID, co-operative marriage of dozens of entities.

For example, if you and I decided that we were going to start a GPS company called the "Beer Runner Ultimate Truck Navigation Machine," first we would start with the concepts of WHAT it would do. Then we would come up with a laundry list of everything we like and we hate about current GPS devices and how you and I were going to fix it all.

Next, we would set about hiring a team of software and hardware experts to build our dream machine. Eventually we would have a nice, big pow-pow with all of our people in a conference room to report to us how we were going to create this device and rule the world.

Each would report back with a few ways to go on our venture.
(1) WE CREATE it "in house" 100% by the Beer Runner / DieselBoss GPS Company. To do this we need to build a silicon wafer fabrication facility and microchip assembly operation, buy a nice piece of land rich with silicon material, some loaders and dump trucks, and workers to dig all that up. Some microchip design engineers, and manufacturing operators, and secretaries, and payroll clerks, and janitors.
Next we also need to build and staff a materials manufacturing facility to mold plastics, make wires, author and write tech manuals, etc.
Then we need to hire a staff of software egg-heads to create an operating system and user interface - And another team to get in some vans and drive every road in North America documenting every inch of road, bridges, addresses, business locations, etc.

Once we put all of this together and test it in the real world for several months, we are ready with our bullet-proof design for the drivers here on the forum. In order to begin to recover our costs to create this device, we offer it up at the low, low introductory price of only $37,615 for the 5-inch screen version (with a free handy carrying case.) By our math, all we have to do is sell 7.2 million units at this price and we'll be out of the red and will begin turning a profit.

OR, (2) - we outsource much of the stuff in Option 1.
You pay a licensing fee to NavTeq or TeleAtlas for raw maps. You procure manufacturing of the hardware to our specifications from China or Korea or Taiwan. You hire a software team, support team, shipping clerks, marketing specialists. BUT, we DON'T want to use Windows CE as the operating system. So now you need a software team to develop the raw operating system from scratch, or to integrate all of the bits and bytes from an existing OS (like Linux or Google Android) into the map data, user interface, and hardware that you bought. And your OS needs to SPEAK THE LANGUAGE of the data providers and hardware (which contains a firmware operating system of its own.) Development of a device OS and the firmware interface in the Beer Runner / Dieselboss GPS company will be time-consuming and expensive (cuz egg-heads make the big bucks) but we CAN DO IT. Now we test it for several months (somehow) out in the real trucking world and offer it to the fine folks here at TheTruckersReport forum for the low, low introductory cost of $2,312 per unit (nifty carrying case included.) To recover our development costs we just have to sell 10,000 units at this price and we will be out of the red and turning profit.

OR (3) - we use the world's most universally plug and play mobile device operating system - Windows CE - because our user interface program and map provider data plugs right in nicely because that's what they wrote their software for. Oh, and our Chinese hardware connection also has millions of firmware ROMS already written to bootstrap the Windows CE OS with minimal tweaking on our part, therefore lower time and cost for our egg-heads to put this whole thing together with our User interface that we either bought, outsourced, or hired our people to create. Then we test our systems out in the real trucking world (somehow) and offer them up to the fine folks at TheTruckersReport for the low introductory cost of $349 (no handy carrying case included) and we only need to sell 10,000 units at this price before we are out of the red and turning a profit.

BUT WAIT - so the third option allows us to actually realistically create the Beer Runner Ultimate Trucking GPS? But we are at the mercy of "company A" and their map data, "off-shore Company B" and their hardware, and Microsoft and their operating system that needs to be rebooted periodically or it gets indigestion?

Decisions, decisions. Perhaps I'll just break out my paper maps and peer out into the darkness through the windshield trying to catch that next street sign...

That is why they all use Windows CE.


Oh and, this post was written with ZERO malicious intent toward Beer Runner or anyone else. It was a legitimate question that has been brought up from time-to-time and having actually researched the feasibility of creating my own GPS device for trucks several years ago, I was in a position to answer with some background on the logistics of it all.

Good post DB. And sup-r-dave your right about that buzz. I have been trying to find a way to stop it. I'll give your idea a try.

Originally Posted by dirtjersey

I agree with beer runner. I regret buying this gps. Every other week it crashes on me saying critical memory loss, leads me down non truck routes, and the feature that zooms in on exits screws me up sometimes. When i need to make uturn it tries to get me to cut inbetween the median where police cut through. I wouldnt waste your $$ use a car gps and just back it up wigh common sense and tru ker atlas

Do you leave it on constantly? If so, try just powering it off and back on about once every 3 days.

Go to your main screen/preferences/truck/POI Icons - turn them off.

Go to your main screen/preferences/device/Map Auto Zoom - set to street or city.

You should not really be making U-Turns in a Semi.

Non - truck routes - examples? Not all Maps are perfect, but Rand does correct our truck attributes or sends in corrections to Navteq if road issues.

Try the mentioned above and let me know how it does.

Thanks,
Mark

Originally Posted by dirtjersey

I agree with beer runner. I regret buying this gps. Every other week it crashes on me saying critical memory loss, leads me down non truck routes, and the feature that zooms in on exits screws me up sometimes. When i need to make uturn it tries to get me to cut inbetween the median where police cut through. I wouldnt waste your $$ use a car gps and just back it up wigh common sense and tru ker atlas

Slow down. I never said that I regret getting the 510. I like my 510 and I'm glad I bought it. But it does some strange things at times, so I just reboot it. Also every night I shut it off, just like the PC. Any Microsoft product will only run for so long before it crashes. I just wonder if I have to download patches every day to make it work better. LOL. The truth is I'm not a fan of MS. But this GPS is the best one so far.

Originally Posted by JohnBoy

Ok, I have a slight issue. Twice my 510 told me a certain address/truckstop was on the wrong side of the highway. What gives? The first issue was a truckstop in Hawthorne Nevada on US-95. It told me it was on the left hand side of the roadway when it really was on the right side. No big problem, it was 4am and no traffic. The other issue was this morning around 1am the address I was looking for in LA said it was on the left side of San Pedro St when it was really on the other side. These things aren't really big issues as I've learned over the years to look on both sides of the road.

Does it do it on all addresses? We corrected an issue like this in the next version.

Thanks,
mark