Subject: Re: Silly way to waste bits.
To: None <netbsd-users@netbsd.org>
From: David Laight <david@l8s.co.uk>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 08/04/2003 15:38:56
On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 01:01:13PM +0000, Gilbert Fernandes wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 06:24:18AM -0500, Richard Rauch wrote:
> 
> > Okay, here's my info for the record, based on my *suggested* fields:
> > 20030804, 4, -95.48117 29.71726, Richard Rauch, rkr@olib.org
> > 
> > Coords are as xglobe (NOT xworld, sorry) expects them
> 
> What is the datum for those coordinates ?
> 
> Latitude and longitude are useless without a datum,
> since they are *calculated* and not read. For example,
> your coordinates in a GPS system would use the WGS84
> (world geodetic system survey of 1984) but if you are
> using another datum (like NAD for North-America or
> ED50 for Europe) those coordinates will be very different.

I doubt as they are very different, the error between WGS84 and OSGB36
(as used on almost all UK maps) is only a couple of hundred meters.
I doubt any of the others are significantly further out.
So for this use is doesn't really matter.

	David

-- 
David Laight: david@l8s.co.uk