1. OBDII Interface
I thought this might be of interest....
I've been doing some research on writing an interface program to read
the OBDII information (on-board diagnostics) from cars sold in the USA
starting in 1996. There's several commerical versions of such software
(mostly in Windows, there's also a Linux version being worked on) but
they're fairly pricey, which I can only assume it's analagous to the
amount of time needed to write/perfect the software. The only thing a
programmer needs is a piece of hardware that connects to the pc's serial
port and connects to the OBDII port usually located close to the
steering column. From there it's just a matter of writing a serial
communications program to talk to the hardware/car.
I've even found a free Windows dll that handles the serial communcations
(since you can't access the serial port directly in Windows) at
http://www.geekhideout.com/iodll.shtml.
A friend of mine is a mechanic who really knows car repair and OBDII but
doesn't know yet how to program. I, on the other hand, don't even
change my own oil but know how to program. Together it should work!
FWIW,
Jonas
2. Re: OBDII Interface
On Mon, 3 Mar 2003 16:04:11 +0000, Jonas Temple <jtemple at yhti.net>
wrote:
>they're fairly pricey, which I can only assume it's analagous to the=20
>amount of time needed to write/perfect the software.
Car m/f & ins are talking together to rid the world of cowboy
mechanics who cannot deal with todays advanced cars.
Like M$ they want a slice of training (and h/ware and s/ware) revenue
this will generate.
Give it a whirl, but I'd expect increasing levels of encryption as
years pass...
