pjcaruso

garmin publishes nothing about the os it's running or the processor chipsets. their tech support doesn't answer ?? about it. there is lots of info about the SiRFstar III chipset however. your link leads me to a page about problems with WAAS capabilities. is the backengineering buried some where in this info ? what do u mean the unit is toast after, like u have to modify the hardware ? i'm in the computer & software support business so my thought is we find a ce, unix, palm os or whatever compiler to generate the microcode, load & run it.

Probably safer if you keep your eye on the road / trail while navigating, I think! Seriously though, no, apart from the cheesy games that Garmin build in, I don't know of any other "entertainment" that you can add to Garmin's recreational units. (Personally, I find the simple fact that a GPSr can tell me exactly where I am, and which way I need to go, to be entertainment enough in itself. I spend WAY too much time watching the little screen when I should be taking in the view, looking out for wildlife, etc! ) If you really want this added functionality, you might look at a smart-phone with built-in GPS, or some of the Windows CE car sat-nav units, which can be easily modded to run pretty well any Windows CE software. Hope this helps! why buy another box when u've got a $300 handheld that may do the same thing. has a decent microprocessor, lots of memory & access to a 2gb micro chip reader. some1 must have CE or Palm OS running on it, we just have to find them!

any one know if there's software & game files out there some where to use the 76csx as a gameboy?

I am having problems with mapset map overlays & downloads to my 76csx, so the garmin software techs had me load 6.14 1st & then 6.14.1 & reformat the sd card using NTFS. Neither of them fixed my problems & 6.14 won't even run on my xp pro laptop with 512 ram. out of memory memory errors. Does run on my desktops including a high end vista machine with 4gbs of ram but excruciatingly slow (takes 5 sec + to redraw each curser move) & eats up the cpu. It appears the USB interface is screwed up also. Not a good release on garmin's part. Turns out u can rename 6.13 & load 6.14 into the same garmin folder & they will both run. Then u can compare. I must say garmin has been very response with my problems, so the louder we scream the more sensitive they will be to their customers!

then besides compression what does 2009 NT update buy u over 2008 ?

compressed? u mean the map data itself is, like zip files so it has to be compressed & uncompressed to use it. ? "some compatibility issues NT compatible units" what does this mean ?

i have a 2gb card from kingston on my 76 & was locking @ city navigator & 2009 NT also. so is this the typical garmin map rip off & u need the base for $80 & then $58 for the NT update also ? btw amazon.com has 95 customer reviews up on NT I thought they were coming out with a City Navigator 2009 Full version so you would not have to buy the full City Navigator 2008 and get the 2009 update for it. I also thought that garmin gave you the free update to 2009 if you bought 2008. amazon lists a base City Navigator 2008 for $80 which is recent for garmin map stuff. so what is NT then ?

i have a 2gb card from kingston on my 76 & was locking @ city navigator & 2009 NT also. so is this the typical garmin map rip off & u need the base for $80 & then $58 for the NT update also ? btw amazon.com has 95 customer reviews up on NT

here is something i tried this am that appears to work. may help if u download different mapsets allot: i copied my latest mapset from the 76 card to my hd. created another mapset & copied that 1 to a different folder on the hd. then copied each of them back to the garmin folder on the 76 1 @ a time & it works great. so now u can copy any mapset to the garmin folder, turn the 76 off & on & it reloads the new mapset. an 800mb copy takes 20 minutes rather then 4 hrs via mapsource. what doesn't get reloaded are the way points or routes but that's easy to fix via a quick reset & erase on the unit & a mapsource download of just the way points & routes.

i have a 76csx with anew 2gb sd card installed & am downloading large data sets to it now. mapsource is great until you send large data sets. then it becomes painful waiting hrs for the download to complete. i have asked garmin tech support about this & all i get is it's USB compatible. it looks to me (watching the transfer speeds) like it's usb 1.1 & not 2.0 compatible. any one know for sure ? paul

It seems that you may not be correctly understanding about hiding the maps. Hiding Topo or Blue Charts won’t prevent you from seeing City Navigator in WA, BC or AK. What you hide (a map product) is a type of map, not a geographical area. You just won’t see Topo or Blue Charts while you are seeing and using City Navigator. Hiding a map product (type) doesn’t mean it’s then hidden forever. You go back to the same menu and the option available for hidden map sets will be Show (map product). When you need Topo or Blue Charts, you use the same menu operation to hide City Navigator and show the one you want to see. I don’t see why you would need to see Blue Charts when you’re driving, or City Navigator if you’re on the water. The benefit of the larger card is that you can load maps to cover more area. I don’t understand why hiding a set of maps that you don’t need while you aren’t using them would defeat the purpose. The only way that can happen is if the maps don’t overlap. Either that or you must be misinterpreting something, because it just doesn’t work that way. There is a hierarchy to the way the unit shows different map products, and the one “on top” hides anything that is “underneath” it. Sure. There is no reason why using a bigger card would change that. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of an adm file. I’m not aware that’s anything that a Garmin unit uses. Can you give more information about that? How was it created? Where did it come from? Detailed maps are stored in gmapsupp.img in the Garmin folder on the card. Waypoints on the 76 series are stored in internal memory only. They are not in any file on the card. I don’t think so. I haven't seen anyone else report anything like this with it. i understand what hiding & showing maps do. what i'm reacting to is i didn't need to do this until i installed the 2gb card. i found this problem via several of my routes that use overlapped us & canada topos + blue charts. garmin must think this is a problem because their tech support is recreating the problems i'm having to figure out a solution. to me this is a problem & that's what counts! on my 76 each mapset generates three file types. img, gpx & adm. gpx & adm are the way point & route descriptors. obviously i'm no garmin file structures expert but they must come from mapsource & get created each time u download to the 76. how else would the way points & routes get changed like the map img file does? that's what's in the garmin folder, go look @ them.

try setup/interface & select the usb interface on the76. this turns the sd card on the 76 into a usb device on your pc. then find it with mapsource & do the upload. if your already doing it this way then try mapsouce directly.

You can only see one map product at a time. You have to hide the ones you don’t want to see so that you can see the ones that are “underneath”. Have you tried that? Map Page>MENU>Setup Map>select the icon that is an “i” in a circle>MENU>select Hide (map product name). Hide everything except Topo, or everything except Blue Charts, and see what happens. I don’t really understand what you’re saying. You should be able to copy data to and from the card the same as with a smaller one. Waypoints aren’t stored on the card, so they should not be affected. If you think some of your waypoints are missing try FIND>Waypoints>MENU>Find By Name. Or did you mean custom POI, which can be stored on the card? i can hide the maps as u suggest but this defeats the purpose of installing the larger card. i.e. i'm traveling through or & wa then on to bc & to ak & need all the maps visible. i was able to view all the products when i used smaller map sets on the 512 card without having to hide any maps. ? i can still copy & paste but with the 512 card i kept all the mapsets on the card & copied & pasted to the garmin folder as needed & only changed the way points via mapsource. waypoints & detail are in the adm file on my 76. this doesn't work anymore. i also updated the 76 with the latest firmware 3.7. could that be the problem ??

You can only see one map product at a time. You have to hide the ones you don’t want to see so that you can see the ones that are “underneath”. Have you tried that? Map Page>MENU>Setup Map>select the icon that is an “i” in a circle>MENU>select Hide (map product name). Hide everything except Topo, or everything except Blue Charts, and see what happens. I don’t really understand what you’re saying. You should be able to copy data to and from the card the same as with a smaller one. Waypoints aren’t stored on the card, so they should not be affected. If you think some of your waypoints are missing try FIND>Waypoints>MENU>Find By Name. Or did you mean custom POI, which can be stored on the card?

i have a 76csx & changed out the sd 512 card to a 2gb. i can now build larger map sets but lose much of the detail when i mix map types, i.e. blue charts with us topo or canada topo doesn't work? none of the map sets exceed 2000 maps. also i can't copy & paste to the garmin folder off the 2gb card like i was able to do on the smaller card. i lose the way points & detail. any help ? paul