SUUNTO Macintosh Support Dive Manager

[gzscuba]

I sent them an email, and offered to do the port myself.

linux diving has some linux software for dealing with Suunto computers. In addition, in their links area, they've got links to a guy who reverse engineered the Suunto protocol (well, most of it). If you've got MacOSX, it shouldn't be that hard to port it to using X11 on OSX. More effort to port it to the native interface. That should have enough that you can get a vaguely functional piece of software for MacOS.

 

[wheezy]

Wish I had the skills to do it myself...

anyone?

 

[d33ps1x]

Ya, my $12,000 FCP4 HighDefinition system is definitely slower than, well, nothing actually. Let's see, that Avid Nitris/ Composer system is pretty fast as well... I guess it should be for close to $250,000 for the basic setup.

Whatever turns your crank highroller.

 

[WJL]

linux diving has some linux software for dealing with Suunto computers. In addition, in their links area, they've got links to a guy who reverse engineered the Suunto protocol (well, most of it). If you've got MacOSX, it shouldn't be that hard to port it to using X11 on OSX. More effort to port it to the native interface. That should have enough that you can get a vaguely functional piece of software for MacOS.

Thanks Greg - I'm going to take a try at this.

 

[chrpai]

Thanks Greg - I'm going to take a try at this.

I'm not sure the Suunto protocol needs to be reverese engineered. I know DAN has a program for dive profile data collection and it directly imports the .vpr file into its program. Perhaps Suunto will just give you the spec if you ask for it.

 

[gzscuba]

I'm not sure the Suunto protocol needs to be reverese engineered. I know DAN has a program for dive profile data collection and it directly imports the .vpr file into its program. Perhaps Suunto will just give you the spec if you ask for it.

Hi Chrpai,

I haven't taken a close look at how the Suunto Dive Manager stores its data - you may be right. But regardless, I'm pretty sure the Mac users want to be able to plug the Suunto computer into the Mac and have the serial line communication protocol work properly - this is what the guy reverse engineered. The .vpr file would only be created once the download is complete.

Note that one advantage of the Suunto Dive Manager is that it can display compartment saturation levels for any part of the dive. In order to have that particular feature, you'd need to write an implementation of RGBM into the software - probably a much more difficult task. Of course, for most people, seeing the profile is probably enough.

Good luck, WJL. Hopefully serial port control is not too different between Linux and MacOSX.

 

[chrpai]

Hi Chrpai,


Note that one advantage of the Suunto Dive Manager is that it can display compartment saturation levels for any part of the dive. In order to have that particular feature, you'd need to write an implementation of RGBM into the software - probably a much more difficult task. Of course, for most people, seeing the profile is probably enough.
.

Actually COM port transactional protocol is easy to immitate. There are devices on the market that will sniff a com port. Then its just a simple matter of watching the various requests and acknowledgements. This will allow you to initiate the transacation and receive the data stream to write to the .VPR file.

Your right about the RGMB part. You'd need that for the simulator functionality also. Frankly I don't see it worth the effort, people should just put aside their PC/MAC views and use a PC emulator. I speak from experience here since I used to use Commodore Amigas. While I preffered native Amiga software, I had no problems using my Emplant card to emulate a Mac or PC-Task to emulate Windows.

 

[wheezy]

Whatever turns your crank highroller.

Who is this guy anyway??? It's what I do for a living, make movies, commercials, you know, television...... some of which I'm sure you've seen, do you have some sort of issue with that? Are you so cool that you need to make insulting posts?

Get a life.

Once again.. back to the point at hand. You guys make a really valid point about the SUUNTO RGBM.... I hadn't thought of that. Well, I've also contacted some of the "smaller" dev houses for mac software like Panic.... no response yet.

I'll just keep hoping that someday, someone will make it happen. I know I sure don't have skills.

 

[chrpai]

Who is this guy anyway??? It's what I do for a living, make movies, commercials, you know, television...... some of which I'm sure you've seen, do you have some sort of issue with that? Are you so cool that you need to make insulting posts?

Perhaps he was a we bit offended by your pompous "antiquated pc" comment and bragging of your $12,000 system.

 

[wheezy]

Well I guess that is a possiblity... my PC really is quite antiquated though... it's a P2 300mhz laptop... lol... bragging... no.. simply pointing out that as a "tool" they are so much less expensive and much faster per dollar than their PC counterparts. I'm pretty sure I've never pounced on one of his threads....

No biggy either way... I just want some DiveManager Software for my darn Mac.

Anyhow... I just got a reply from Panic... the support guy at least seemed interested and passed along my email to his dev team.

pretty cool... we just might get that port afterall...