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Boat Computer modified for 4WDs I was interested to see the Boat Computer modification (April 2016; siliconchip.com.au/Article/9887) for fitting in a four-wheel drive with an altitude display in the August 2020 issue (Circuit Notebook). Some time ago, I installed the Boat Computer in my four-wheel drive and also modified the software to suit. My software strips out the navigation capability and has three screen displays. At switch on, it shows a digital speedo (useful because car speedos are almost always inaccurate) and a compass. The compass display has been redesigned to work like a marine steering compass, which I find more intuitive. Unlike the original software, the compass does not blank when the vehicle stops because a car does not swing at anchor. The second screen shows time, date and day of the week. Serious grey nomads can easily lose track of the latter, which can result in problems when arriving in town and finding the shops and attractions are shut. This information assumes Eastern Standard Time (10 hours in front of GMT). For other time zones, the variable timezone should be adjusted to the difference from GMT in seconds. The third screen shows latitude, longitude, altitude and number of satellites. The latter is to give some indication of precision. The modified software is available for download from the Silicon Chip website (siliconchip.com.au/ Shop/6/5681). Greg Hoyes, Upper Kedron, Qld. ($50) More modified Boat Computer software I saw the article about getting the altitude information to appear on the Boat Computer by Tim Blythman (Circuit Notebook, August 2020; siliconchip.com.au/Article/14539) and have added it to my program. I have made a few other modifications to it. I use mine as my primary speedometer. I have been running this for a long time now, and have it on the top of my dash. It appears just above my steering wheel and just under my normal line of vision. I have also fitted a shroud to get rid of sunlight on the screen. I am an NBN “Fixed Wireless” installer and sometimes need to know in what direction I am driving to be able to determine which direction the siliconchip.com.au tower is I need to point to (the bearing is given on the work order). My daughter also has one in her car and is often asked by friends what it does. The other changes I made are as follows: 1) I locked the baud rate for the GPS module to 9600 baud as I have found it to be the usual rate. 2) I have added a 24-hour clock on the heading screen, as my satnav loses the clock when I go into navigate mode. 3) I have included automatic backlight control. I am using a Jaycar LDR (RD3480) in series with a 56kW resistor. The LDR looks out through a hole on the back of the case, which gives Australia’s electronics magazine good light control and requires no access to car wiring. 4) I have modified the km/h reading to give the reading in 1/10th km/h resolution (the decimal place is in a smaller font). When I loaded it with the altitude changes, I initially loaded it using the V4 fonts library. But when I loaded the V6 fonts into the library, the program crashed after loading the main program. I then “crunched” the fonts file and it all loaded okay. Both these files are available for download from the Silicon Chip website (siliconchip.com.au/ Shop/6/5681). Ray Saegenschnitter, Huntly, Vic. ($50) November 2020  63