moonpup Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 I have been wondering about this and wanted to see if anyone who had 2 x units (60Cx or LegendCx etc) could try this out. I know that Garmin is selling pre-loaded transflash cards with mapping data. For obvious resaons, they can't marry these cards to a specific unit id as far as I know. Unless somethings happens to them once you install them and somehow the unit registers it, thus preventing use in other x capable units. What I wanted someone to try, was to take a card that has loaded map data from their mapsource product which is unlocked to one of their x units and then take this card and put in another x unit and see if it works. I'm assuming Garmin has already thought about this, but has anyone actually tried this to see if it works or fails? Quote Link to comment
Neo_Geo Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 (edited) If I load maps from MY City Select that I unlocked to MY 60Cx, then take out the memory card out of my GPSr and put it into your Cx unit, you would get an error message "Cannot Unlock Maps" when the unit starts up. You would click [ENTR] to acknowledge the error and you would not see any map detail. One experiment that I have not heard done before is using the Sendmap program to send your map data to a GPSr that has not been unlocked. You can use Sendmap to send home-grown maps to the GPSr. It has also been established that you can load MetroGuide maps to autorouting GPSrs, and Sendmap allows the routing data to get through (but then you lose the address search function) and the GPSr can autoroute using that data. Can Sendmap defeat the unlock process as well? There is also another program which is the GUI for Sendmap - Img2GPS. Edited June 30, 2006 by Neo_Geo Quote Link to comment
kerecsen Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 What I wanted someone to try, was to take a card that has loaded map data from their mapsource product which is unlocked to one of their x units and then take this card and put in another x unit and see if it works. There was another thread about this a couple of days ago. Mapsource puts the maps and any unlock keys for those maps that it knows about on the card. So if your mapsource has a key for both units, the card will work in both units (or 3, 4, 100 units, depending on the size of your collection) . Garmin used to make a lot of removable flash card units way back when, it was only a recent (and temporary, thank goodness) phenomenon to have units with built-in map memory. So they have figured out how to make it work without opening loopholes for stealing maps. Sendmap doesn't unlock the maps, btw. Quote Link to comment
moonpup Posted June 30, 2006 Author Share Posted June 30, 2006 OK, but that still doesn't answer my question about the pre-programmed cards. Will they lock themselves to a specific unit once installed? Quote Link to comment
Neo_Geo Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 (edited) I didn't realize you had a question about the preprogrammed cards... I am PRETTY SURE that those are sharable (read it somewhere here, but have no experience with it firsthand). That would be the ONLY value I can see in buying the preprogrammed cards - is if you have lots of different GPSrs you'd want to share the data with... Edited June 30, 2006 by Neo_Geo Quote Link to comment
+Train_Man Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 I didn't realize you had a question about the preprogrammed cards... I am PRETTY SURE that those are sharable (read it somewhere here, but have no experience with it firsthand). That would be the ONLY value I can see in buying the preprogrammed cards - is if you have lots of different GPSrs you'd want to share the data with... If this is true... Say you got a 256 preprogrammed card for your area and you want it on 4 gps devices but you don't want to move the card around, you could put all four X units in 'USB mass storage mode' and copy the file to all four units so they'd all have it at once. I never thought about this advantage! Quote Link to comment
+Red90 Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 Not that I have seen one, but I'm sure they must have copy protection built into the cards. if they didn't, pirating the maps would be too easy. I suspect that you can not write to the cards either. Quote Link to comment
+Team Cotati Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 I read that Garmin has a pretty good tech support staff. Quote Link to comment
andygriffith Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 Not that I have seen one, but I'm sure they must have copy protection built into the cards. if they didn't, pirating the maps would be too easy. I suspect that you can not write to the cards either. I doubt that there will be a copy protection scheme, I suspect you will be purchasing an unlock code when you buy the prepopulated card. Quote Link to comment
kerecsen Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 I doubt that there will be a copy protection scheme, I suspect you will be purchasing an unlock code when you buy the prepopulated card. There is currently no facility on the GPS to enter a code from the unit. The other alternative of entering the code on the PC doesn't work, because some Cx units come without a cable, and giving a Mapsource CD with the preloaded card would defeat the purpose of the preprogrammed card. My personal guess is that they will use the SD serial number for protection (it's very hard to fake unless you happen to have your own flash card factory). The other alternative is that they get an advanced card that does hardware-level encryption, so they cards wouldn't even be readable on a PC. The main drawback of the SD-serial is that you need to program each card individually, which makes large scale replication somewhat costly. Quote Link to comment
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