Garmin GPS map76 b/w screen or color - it don't matter. Probably find them used on ebay for not much more than $100.
Simple and hand held. You'll have to look a little and order a cable to hook it to your computer. Learn about it by driving around with it on your dashboard. Play with it and you will learn it.
I'm no GPS expert. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. LOL
Seriously - this is my first GPS, and about 10 years ago when when they were starting to become popular I bought a book called "Idiots Guide to GPS" (before I even had a GPS reciever) But the point is I've read and pondered on it just a little over the years. I never spent too much time on it. A little here and a little there.
I did not learn fast, I learned one little thing at a time. It was not any huge effort. I wore out the instruction book that came with my GPS!!! Nothing wrong with reading the instructions.
If you come across something you don't understand, put it aside and learn something else about your GPS that day. Come back to it when you are ready. Don't let it intimidate you.... it's nothing mysitcal - it's just very accurate clocks.
The mack-daddy GPS unit I've seen is on Dave Markett's boat. I think it's a Lorance. That's the one I want to get someday!!!
But once you get one and play with it a little -- get the cable and hook it up to your computer- then you can load new maps to your gps, Get your "crumb trails" (track files) out of the gps and then some other software can overlay them on serial photos - (like above). You can do so much! You can pre-program routes on the computer, then load them onto the gps and have it tell you where to go. Saving map points (Waypoints) is easy on the GPS, but naming them is not. Typing on the GPS just sux. But hooked to the computer it's different with a full keyboard. You'll have a custom map you can carry.
Dang, I apologize for getting this one off topic. There are a bunch of GPS threads on this forum. Search them out - there is good info already out there.
Here's one that sold refurbished for $125 (Buy-it-now)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0134200385
Search this catagory and get one - GPS MAP76
http://listings.ebay.com/aw/plistings/c ... l?from=R11
To make the maps - I use a $15 program called TERRABROWSER (for the mac)
http://www.chimoosoft.com
I don't know what Windows program to use. The map program opens the .gpx files that the GPS software pulls off the GPS. Again, on the mac, I use something called GPSmacPro to let my computer talk to my Garmin GPSmap76
good luck!!!
matt.