Computer charting this and that, #1
* Panbo reader Dan Hinckley has put together a thorough and useful review of his experience running both GPSNavX and MacENC on a Mac mini, which is where the screen shot above came from.
* A couple of readers have pointed out www.chartsdvd.com, which is the work of a sailing couple living in San Francisco. They’re offering all of NOAA’s free raster and vector charts on one DVD for $30, shipping included, nice and simple.
* At the other extreme of computer charting is WECDIS, the Warfare version of Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems. Slowly but surely the world’s navies are dumping paper charts in favor of WECDIS, or similar systems with different acronyms. The company supplying the British Royal Navy and hoping to get the U.S. business is OSI.
I would be very careful with what DVD one orders. If the source is NOAA's download site then you will end up with only 1016 charts, but if you go to Maptech's freeboatingcharts then you have access to 2077 charts. Before ordering any DVD make sure you contact the supplier to see exactly how many charts are included on the DVD and who the source of the charts is.