Installing Florida DoT EFB program on Paravant RHC44??

You are talking about the old DOS version correct? Send an email to gagguys@backsight.com and I will send you the DOS version manual in .PDF form.

I sent you what I think will get you going via e-mail so watch out for it. I had to rattle the old brain cells as you were working with some stone age items there but I think I remembered the important stuff!

Man, you musta been Waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy back in the closet to find that thing.

Thanks, Joe_Surveyor!!

Here is the RHC44 in all its retro-digital glory at the EFB main menu -

Sure appreciate your help on this.

Mr. File, this item was certainly close to the back of the closet, but not quite.

It is the last remnant I have of a long saga that began 20 years ago this month when your employer requested demonstrations of survey data collectors. You probably know more than I do about the less-than-stellar course of this fiasco, but as I recall it started badly and progressively became worse over several years.

There was a committee at headquarters that wrote a lengthy wishlist of a specification that pretty much insisted that the data collector do everything in exactly the way prescribed in the department's survey manual, no exceptions allowed.

I was at headquarters with Mark Fischer of Tripod Data Systems on the Monday before Thanksgiving. Seems that TDS never got serious consideration because at that time all TDS point naming was strictly numeric and the committee wanted alphanumeric point names and would not accept any workaround.

Then the Monday after Thanksgiving I was there with Paul K. from Texas, who somehow managed to convince the committee that he could fulfill all their survey dreams if the department would just give him a check.

They started out with the Paravant RHC44 tablet computers but for some reason or other (mayhaps the Paravant was discontinued?) they switched to a different handheld (some model of MicroPalm??) before completing delivery.

Joe R., the programmer guy from Austin, Texas, spent so much time in Helena trying to get things to work that he met a local woman and married her. Bryce L. told me the other day he heard a rumor that Joe is now working with a software company in Canada, possibly MicroSurvey?.

I was to receive a $4,000 finder's fee for my efforts in getting Paul K. in front of the department, but only received half of that and a December 1995 promise that the remainder would be coming "soon". Nothing so far, still waiting. Maybe "soon" was meant in the geologic time scale, as in the Yellowstone volcano is due to erupt again sometime soon?

GB

Thanks, Joe_Surveyor!!

Pretty sure i quit a job when they wanted me full time on an EFB crew. We used an MKV or something like that. I think DOT still uses EFB, saw a four man crew doing road collection last summer.

Thanks, Joe_Surveyor!!

Geez, makes me shudder just thinking about it, EFB and a Husky doing FDOT cross sections. 5 times the walking to save some office weenie 5 keystrokes and a couple minutes.

Thanks, Joe_Surveyor!!

Amen, brother. Hated every minute of that program.

Thanks, Joe_Surveyor!!

> I was at headquarters with Mark Fischer of Tripod Data Systems on the Monday before Thanksgiving.

Mark was the TDS guy who sold my then-employer our first data collector, TDS running on an MC-V. I think this was in 1990. TDS was still a nimble little company back then, and you could actually talk to real people about adding features. Mark was the first person I ever heard use the term "Chinglish," as he explained some of the quirky syntax in the TDS manual and help files.

He seemed like a nice guy. I wonder where he ended up.

Thanks, Joe_Surveyor!!

EFB is a great program if you understand HOW TO USE IT. I have done many hours of EFB training at seminars around the state and the biggest problem new users have is they try to make it do things it won't do. It won't operate like TDS and new users get frustrated and then say the EFB is a bad program. It's not a bad program. It's bad users.

The new program is an improvement in spite of it's current bugs and IMHO there is nothing better for collecting DTM data and taking cross sections.

HydroSports Dive and Travel / Keizer, Oregon

Looks like Mark has been running his own dive-and-travel business in the Salem area for the past 15 years.

Last time I saw Mark was in April 1996 at the Trimble dealer meeting in the Baltimore area, believe he was working for Pacific Survey Supply at the time. We had a reception at the National Aquarium, so Mark was right at home. Seems like Deral from Lawton was at that dealer meeting as well.

GB

and since you mentioned the CMT MC-V -

David Lin, owner of Corvallis Microtechnology that manufactured the MC-V, recently stirred up an incident with the Chinese government when he commissioned a mural advocating independence for Tibet on the old CMT building in downtown Corvallis. The story was in the national news a couple of months back.

(Hope this does not get me banned for a P&R violation.)

GB