[Thumbgps-devel] Build vs. modify vs. what should we be doing anyway?

[tz]

A re-radiator is possible, I had one for my car but this adds to the
complexity and expense.

You can do SPI or I2C - I have the EVK so can do some firmware
customization for the SkyTraq 628 - I can only do 10Hz but I can put
data out over SPI or I2C, but that is not the problem.

The newest Arduinos use a second Atmel chip (reprogrammable!) to
translate USB to serial - it replaces the FTDI, but we would have all
the source and it should be common enough to have drivers everywhere.
I don't remember if it has an ICP.  I have a different sparkfun USB
breakout Atmel chip that can be a serial adapter but has a high
resolution timer input capture the PPS could be run into.

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php?topic=111.15

www.atmel.com/Images/7799S.pdf

The 32u2 would have space for extra things if we wanted to do things
like maintain a synchronized internal clock.   We could theoretically
add I2C sensors (gyro, baro/temp, accel, magnetic compass).  I had
something like this on a breadboard already 2 years ago (logged data
from a skytraq plus all these).

Note: The Skytraq chips have options to save configurations into FLASH
and SRAM or just SRAM.  It also has a "ROM" option if you screw things
up but I don't know if the right pins are on the breakout.

Most other chipsets have an option save to FLASH or EEPROM
(Non-Volatile storage).  We could add an EEPROM if we do our own USB
micro and do a soft reset and upload the configuration if needed.