NMEA 2000 Or A 20 Year Old NMEA 0183?

Interesting discussion over at the BoaterEd Forums. Scotty, working for Standard Horizon says “…we currently are not planning to implement the NMEA 2000 into our systems simple because most marine electronics companies are not using that system.” Now if everybody in the industry keeps using this argument, we won’t get anywhere.
Les Hall: “Raymarine’s C80 is about $1,500 with a 8.4″ screen. To it’s credit, it does have a NMEA 2000 port. However, for the same amount of money, I can get a 15″ laptop with a 15″ screen, a USB GPS antenna, charting software, street mapping software and a 2.6 GIGAhertz processor. The point is that the good folks who make this stuff need to start thinking a little more about the consumer by standardizing on some common features. Even the NMEA 0183 connections require hand wiring.”