COM(GPS) sharing oddity...

[Guest Socrates]

I wonder if anyone can help me figure out what is going on here.

I have a Smartphone 2003 (SMT5600). I have CYCLEDO Demo(www.cycledo.info), Maopolis 4.6, and an itrek m3 (bt-339).

It was my understanding that WM2003 Smartpones can't share com port GPS. Now that I actually have the gps unit in my hand, it turns out that both Mapopolis and Cycledo DO appear to work at the same time. Cycledo is able to keep track of elevations, distances, mph, etc at the same time that Mapopolis is rattling off instructions such as turn in 300 feet, turn in 200 feet, etc.

The cycledo people came up with a theory that Maybe Mapopolis can actually talk to the bluetooth gps directly bypassing the com port. Which seems unlikely to me since I had to tell Mapopolis which COM port to use before it would work at all.

I was thinking that maybe what actually hapens is that the two programs keep disconnecting and reconnecting in sequnce and that it happens so fast that neither program actually notices a drop off or maybe just corrects for it on the fly.

Anyone have any theories? My SMT5600 is a brand new one that was sent out by Cingular's insurance claims department less than a month ago. It has a much newer ROM with much better reception than my old one, and I wonder if it's actually possible that the new ROM actually has com sharing built into it.

Does anyone know what should happen when two programs both try to access the COM port? Should an error occur.