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Data Hacking

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14 Part I — Hardware Hacks<br />

No cable connection also means that you cannot update the firmware on the GPS, and thereby<br />

take advantage of bug fixes and new features released by the manufacturer.<br />

How you acquire the cables is up to you. Shortly I will take you through the process of making<br />

them and you can also save yourself time (but not money unfortunately) by making these for<br />

yourself. The overwhelming advantage of making your own cables is that it offers you some<br />

practice with figuring out the wiring before progressing to more complex “multi” cables.<br />

Let’s take a brief tour of the different types of cable.<br />

The <strong>Data</strong> Cable<br />

A data cable is pretty self-explanatory — it is a cable that is used to transfer data between a<br />

GPS unit and another device. That other device is usually a PC or some form of handheld<br />

mobile device (such as a Pocket PC device like the HP iPAQ). When connecting to a PC, the<br />

port to which the cable connects is the serial port. The connector used is usually a 9-pin D<br />

connector.<br />

Figure 2-1 shows a PC-to-Garmin eTrex data cable.<br />

FIGURE 2-1: A PC-to-Garmin eTrex data cable

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