Help Robin with the next GPSS "free" CD

Hi ! This page is aimed at those enthusiasts, with the required software engineering experience, who might provide some free help to me in making the next GPSS "free" CD. You will find out more about these CD on the CDROM page.

In brief, these are CD mastered by myself then duplicated by others such as GPS manufacturers who distribute them free with their GPS products. They are sometimes duplicated in much smaller quantity (typically 10 off) by enthusiasts as part of some Beta test programme. The vast majority of GPS enthusiasts using GPSS will have got their copy of the software, not from a CD but by downloading it from www.gpss.co.uk, along with whatever mapping they need.

However, the CDs hold all the website (at the time they are created) along with the latest version of the GPS Software, speech for 12 languages and mapping for very many countries - down to street level for all USA. The main advantage of the CD is that it is a much simpler and quicker way of installing the software and mapping onto the Laptop PC - or the desktop, if their Laptop does not have a CD drive.

Its now some time since the last free GPSS CD was made - see the date on the picture above - but copies are still distributed by a few people. It is time to make a new master: one task is easy - simply making sure the latest copy of gpss.co.uk is on it: yes, each CD holds ALL the web site, including pages of information, pictures, the software and all the mapping.

Now the slightly technical part: the SETUP.EXE on the CD and other files, provide the means for the user to install the right combination of GPSS EXE downloads onto their PC from the CD. This might typically be the GPSS Baseline (e.g. GPSS55A.EXE and GPSS55B.EXE), basic mapping for their country or city region (e.g. USADISK.EXE and REEDVILL.EXE) and street level mapping for their immediate area (e.g. 45N122W.EXE). After testing the software again near home, the user might use the setup process again to add more mapping further from home and for other countries. This setup software is described on the old page SETUP

Now another important point: GPSS is still able to run on all versions of full Windows. i.e. 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98r2, 2000, XP, etc. It will also run on a Laptop without a CD and with only a few MegaBytes of hard disk space sufficient to hold whatever mapping is needed. There are several reasons for wishing to keep this capability including the fact that many enthusiasts run GPSS on old second-hand 486 or Pentium Laptops costing them only a few dollars. There are also excellent business reasons in having software which does not need the latest version of Microsoft Windows, or a more powerful hardware platform, to perform well. Those making Car-PC products may wish to have a wide selection of options to keep their costs and resulting product price low. Also, those offering a free CD with their GPS need to be confident they will have a happy customer - and not complaints because he found out later it would not run on his old Laptop.

Those who think they can help me should have a Laptop PC and GPS so they can start with step 1 then step 2 on the DOWNLOAD page. I do not promise to offer much in return other than due public credit for any good advice or work done - plus a free copy of the CD, of course :-)

Robin Lovelock
November 2003.