At 8:54 PM -0400 2003/05/07, Kyle Christensen wrote: > what makes it unsharable? I have can have gpsdrive and gpsmap connected > to it just dandy.. If it's a serial connection, then only one process can have that port open at any one point in time. If it's a TCP connection, then depending on how the server is implemented, only one process at a time can be talking to the server. Since the amount of data is relatively small, it should easily fit into a single UDP packet, which makes the service much, much more scalable. Think about trying to do DNS (with a forking or select()-based server that allows multiple client processes to be talking to the same server at the same time) with just TCP and not UDP. If only because of the much heavier connection set-up requirements, you could only handle 1/10th the amount of traffic/connections/etc.... -- Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@xxxxxxxxx> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania. GCS/IT d+(-) s:+(++)>: a C++(+++)$ UMBSHI++++$ P+>++ L+ !E-(---) W+++(--) N+ !w--- O- M++ V PS++(+++) PE- Y+(++) PGP>+++ t+(+++) 5++(+++) X++(+++) R+(+++) tv+(+++) b+(++++) DI+(++++) D+(++) G+(++++) e++>++++ h--- r---(+++)* z(+++)