I don't work for them, I'm not a gearhead, and I didn't sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night...
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Hello again fellow do-it-yourselfers,
We’ve had some exciting news from the AutoTap diagnostic scantool development team. Well - I find it exciting and I’d like to share it with you.
Nothing stands still in the electronics world, between PC’s and car electronics AutoTap engineers have plenty to keep track of. Big changes have happened on both sides of the fence, and the AutoTap R&D crew has responded with a brand new version of AutoTap hardware to keep up with (and even get ahead of) those changes.
First the PC side. If you’ve bought a laptop recently you know that PC makers have it in for the good ol’ serial port. It’s been the workhorse of PC connectivity for about 30 years now so maybe it was getting long in the tooth. But like most engineers, I hope it never fades away – it just works too darn well to get rid of it completely. To replace it, there is USB– that’s Universal Serial Bus. USB is the new workhorse of PC connectivity. AutoTap couldn’t resist the USB trend forever, so our brand new hardware features USB connectivity instead of serial. Now you can plug it right into your PC or laptop’s USB port, no need for a USB to serial adapter dongle.
Big changes in car electronics too. The OBDII spec has evolved to include yet another communications method to the car’s computer. The new spec is J2284, or CAN (Controller Area Network if you’re interested). The EPA requires all vehicles use CAN by 2007. This will replace the 4 different communications methods used today and will (finally!) get all vehicles using a single method. CAN will improve OBDII in a couple ways. First, all vehicle manufactures will be using a single spec (instead of the melting pot of specs that makes up OBDII today). This will help eliminate compatibility problems between vehicles. Also, CAN is fast, over 10 times faster than the best OBDII protocol today. That means that we’ll eventually be able to retrieve more data from the vehicle in less time. Good news if you’re a performance enthusiast or are trying to catch an intermittent glitch.
So, as you can probably guess, our new AutoTap hardware supports the new CAN bus. Even though CAN won’t be required in vehicles until 2007, we’re already starting to see a few 2003 and 2004 models make the switch. Even though those cars won’t be out of warranty for a couple years, we want AutoTap owners to be assured that we’re looking into the future. Later in 2004 I’ll be announcing AutoTap software updates to add CAN support to the software as well.
Along with these changes we’ve made some other tweaks to AutoTap. The enclosure has been redesigned to eliminate the “lump in a cable” look, making it quicker to get from the tool box to a diagnosis. And we’ve simplified our model numbers making it easier for you to figure out exactly what you need.
Now, if you’re an RS-232 loyalist or a Palm PDA user, not to worry. We’ll continue to have an RS-232 version of AutoTap. Remember Palms can’t use USB peripherals so you’ll still find the serial version of AutoTap when you click through to AutoTap for Palm on http://www.autotap.com/welcome.html?s=011404ie.
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