My Mac and my Magellan Triton? Does not seem to work!

[greengirls+1]

My husband got me a Magellan Triton 400 for my birthday, I can't figure out HOW to get it to work with my mac.... The map program does not load, I tried to use an SD card and nothing.

I guess I am taking it back....

WHY doesn't anything work with my mac??

 

I want to be able to plug it in and download geocaches quickly and be ready to go.... is that possible?

[+sgarrand]

My husband got me a Magellan Triton 400 for my birthday, I can't figure out HOW to get it to work with my mac.... The map program does not load, I tried to use an SD card and nothing.

I guess I am taking it back....

WHY doesn't anything work with my mac??

 

I want to be able to plug it in and download geocaches quickly and be ready to go.... is that possible?

 

You can use MacCaching, I use it with my iMac and Magellan eXplorist 500.

 

Scott

[greengirls+1]

But HOW???

Is it easy and quick? Can I plug it in and download caches?

 

 

My husband got me a Magellan Triton 400 for my birthday, I can't figure out HOW to get it to work with my mac.... The map program does not load, I tried to use an SD card and nothing.

I guess I am taking it back....

WHY doesn't anything work with my mac??

 

I want to be able to plug it in and download geocaches quickly and be ready to go.... is that possible?

 

You can use MacCaching, I use it with my iMac and Magellan eXplorist 500.

 

Scott

[greengirls+1]

The Magellan Triton is not on the list of supported devices??

[+sgarrand]

But HOW???

Is it easy and quick? Can I plug it in and download caches?

 

It is pretty easy. You get a GPX or LOC file (a pocket query contains many caches in one file) and open that file into MacCaching. Then click "To GPS", select USB and Magellan. I do not have the same model as you so it may not work but it's free and worth a try.

 

Scott

[+SkellyCA]

I have a Triton 400 too. You need to use VantagePoint.

 

Check out the Triton Forums

[+sgarrand]

The Magellan Triton is not on the list of supported devices??

 

I realize this but it can't hurt to try. The list hasn't been updated since August 2007.

 

Scott

[+briansnat]

Moving to the appropriate forum

[robertlipe]

This thread is all full of confused.

 

Explorist is not Triton. From the view of the computer and the software talking to them, they have nothing in common. (OK, they may share a USB vendor ID, accounting for a grand total of two bytes in the USB food chain in common...

 

Explorist used a sane and documented way of interchanging data with it that was rapidly used by third party programs to interface with with it. Programs like GPSBabel suported Explorist with days of them hitting the market.

 

Triton used a proprietary, undocumented protocol that was never supported by any software other than Magellan's own.

 

Vantage Point runs only on Windows. So while it may run on Mac via VMWare Fusion or Parallels, and probably does run on a Mac when booted under Windows via boot camp, by no reasonable definition is that working on a Mac.

 

If your goal is ease of use on a Mac, Triton is a poor choice. Sorry.

[+Redwoods Mtn Biker]

WHY doesn't anything work with my mac??

 

Don't feel too bad. Sometimes they don't even work with PCs! I've got a bricked Triton 1500. IMHO, they are so bad it's not even worth the pain to fix it. But then I've got a whole stable of other units at my disposal, which definitely colors my perception.

[+user13371]

WHY doesn't anything work with my mac?

It just looks that way when the one in your hand doesn't work.

 

Older Magellans (Explorist, Merdian, SporTrak) "work with Mac" in the fashion described by Robert Lipe.

 

Garmin software has Mac support approaching feature parity to their PC software:

http://www8.garmin.com/macosx/

 

DeLorme provides limited ability to transfer data one way -- from the Mac to the PN-20 and PN-40 -- and they're working to improve that.

 

And the very best GPS for "paperless" caching is an iPhone -- which most assuredly works with the Mac.

 

But it's true, the Triton won't work with the Mac - or much else, either. Dump it on eBay or Craigslist (but not here, we're all wise to it) and get something else.

Edited April 27, 2009 by lee_rimar

[+TeamAldridge]

From another Apple user's prospective, I love my Oregon and the good integration with my Mac. I think Garmin is further along than most in regards to Mac support. I tried the DeLORME PN-20, and while DeLORME has pretty good support, don't call up their support and expect help with the Mac. I was quickly told that Mac wasn't supported. Just my 2 cents.

[GrueMaster]

While I am not a Mac user, I am in the same boat (Linux). What I can say is there appear to be a few of us Linux hackers with these units, and it is slowly being broken down. For example, tritonforum.com has a post on getting a triton unit into a diagnostic mode that allows you to connect to it like a usb drive. Using this, I have found the file that the system uses for storing cache, route, and waypoint information. It is an sqlite3 file (mini database). As soon as I have a better understanding of this file format, I'll write a modification for gpsbabel to read/write it. Bear with me as I just bought my Triton 300 last week, and I also have a full time job.

 

More to follow. Watch for my posts.

[+bentbrook]

Here's my workaround for my Triton 500: I use Parallels 4.0 (a virtual machine app) with Windows XP installed on it on my Macbook. Vantage Point 1.41 is installed on the Windows virtual machine (later updates like 1.6 don't work for me) with v1.85 firmware on the Triton. I can connect to my GPSr that way, transfer maps (I also have National Geoographic TOPO installed) and caches, etc.

[+Mr.Moo]

I am another Mac user who would like to put Geocaches on my Triton 500. VantagePoint just crashes before it comes all the way up under XP in VirtualBox, and requires 1.5 ghz, while my old PC has only 400 mhz. I would really like to NOT use VantagePoint, or have it actually work.

[robertlipe]

Nothing has changed since post #9. Triton is a poor choice for geocachers as only Magellan's own (terribly rated) software supports it. It's a poor choice for Mac and Linux users as Magellan's software doesn't run there. There is no third party software that supports it to my knowledge and I've seen nobody interested enough in reverse engineering the protocol and implementing it to make it happen.

[+Cam1998]

My husband got me a Magellan Triton 400 for my birthday, I can't figure out HOW to get it to work with my mac.... The map program does not load, I tried to use an SD card and nothing.

I guess I am taking it back....

WHY doesn't anything work with my mac??

 

I want to be able to plug it in and download geocaches quickly and be ready to go.... is that possible?

 

Even though Vantage Point is not available for Macs, it doesn't mean that it is impossible to get a few geocaches on to your triton with your Mac. This is how you do it:

When you run a cache search, each cache has it's own "Send to GPS" button in the far right column. Click this icon for the cache you want on your GPS and a separate window will open. This window will have 3 tabs. One for Delorme, Magellan and Garmin. Choose the Magellan tab. You will have to install the Magellan Communicator plugin for Safari or Firefox. Make sure you choose the Mac version. Install the plugin and then click check device and download. The"paperless" geocache will then transfer to your GPS and you'll be all set.

 

I hope this helps. The only problem with this method is that you can only get one cache at a time, but it's better than nothing.

 

-Cam1998

[+GClouse]

I have a Triton 2000 and use Linux, so I am in the same boat. The triton series uses a number of Microsoft-centric protocols/ The Vantagepoint desktop application is a dot net application that uses unmanaged code.

 

Unlike newer models that can take a gpx file in directly, the Triton series must have the file uploaded through a complex synchronization process. I started to research the protocols and put it off due to other project. Perhaps I should work on it some more.

[domi409]

I have a Triton 2000 and use Linux, so I am in the same boat. The triton series uses a number of Microsoft-centric protocols/ The Vantagepoint desktop application is a dot net application that uses unmanaged code.

 

Unlike newer models that can take a gpx file in directly, the Triton series must have the file uploaded through a complex synchronization process. I started to research the protocols and put it off due to other project. Perhaps I should work on it some more.

 

After multiple trials, finally, my Triton 500 could connect to my MAC and I could activate all my maps on Vantage point 2.04, running under the Parallels 6 virtual machine. I believe it would work with all virtual machines.

What I did:

 

First, I saw in a forum that maps could be activated with Vantagepoint 1.4.1. I found this old version on internet and installed it under Parallels. It works, after activating properly the Triton drivers under Windows 7, and maps can be downloaded from the Triton and activated. It works fine.

Then I tried to upgrade to Vantagepoint 2.04 (the most recent version today). The upgrade took place but then the maps disappeared from the Vantagepoint menu. There is then a work around to find back the maps: Run Vantage point, connect the Triton and then use the Vantagepoint menu "Open file" to open a map file (should be in Vantagepoint directory, under folder "Add map". When the map is in the Triton, then the map gets activated and runs well.

I suppose that installing Vantagepoint 2.0.4 upfront, then copying the map files directly from the SD cardand activating them with the "open file" menu would work as well, without going thru the Vantagepoint 1.4.1 version.