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Explorist 400 2.01 Update

allory

By allory
in GPS technology and devices

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embra

+embra

Posted
Posted

Interesting that the 400, most recent release of the 4/5/600 group gets the new firmware first, but the 500, out for the longest and the 600, with the most problems, must yet wait. Ah well, perhaps there's something around the corner.

 

If any 400 owners try this out, please try to report on whatever changes you see. In typical Magellan style, they seem to be keeping the changes secret.

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geognerd

+geognerd

Posted
Posted
no idea what it does, cause i don't have an eXplorist and they don't include a readme file

I have a 400, but I'm afraid of what the new firmware may do to it since everything works fine for me right now. I'll wait for someone else to try it first, or at least until we know what the heck it does. Why don't they post some file that explains what is modified? How do we know this is different from what's on the receiver already? My receiver says Ver 4.1.64 at startup. So I take it the firmware on the site is 4.2.01? Just guessing since the executable is called eX400v2_01.exe. Submitting a support request to Magellan online to get an official word about the changes. But I bet we figure it out here in the forums before they get back to me.

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-=BrainDead=-

+-=BrainDead=-

Posted
Posted

Well I upgraded the firmware for my 400 and it seems that in the "adv. features"there is a projection screen. I'm new with gps and the 400 so I don't remember being there before updating. In the "point of int/geocache pt", there is now a "found" tab between the "view and hint" tabs. In the "geocache pt", when pressing menu, there is now a "find by cache ID" & "show found cache". When on the map screen and when pressing menu, the going to the display tab, there are added display options to chose from. Those are just a few things that i have noticed while playing with the upgrade.

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robertlipe

robertlipe

Posted
Posted (edited)

I'm still poking at it, but at a glance, I'm disappointed. The unit is still sluggish and the core UI appears unchanged.

  • Added dialog "Some Geocache data can't be read due to size limitations" so people will get notice when it throws data away.
  • There is now a "halo" around icons displayed on the map so it's less ugly when zoomed out.
  • On the geocache screen, there is now a "found" button. This changes the icon to add a checkmark and makes it disappear from the list.
  • Unfortunately, that screen is totally disjoint to the navigation screen so you can't get the arrow that tells you it's 218 feet away AND the cache type on the same screen. Fortunately, if you don't need anything beyond the icon, you can select the cache from the map screen and mark it found there. It's not as convenient as Garmin's approach, but it's a step up.
  • Waypoint projection was added back.
  • New hidden files are created in usbtrans that describe the capabilities of the unit so software doesn't have to keep guessing how long fields are, how many points are stored, etc. (The maximums appear to be exactly as I remember them...)
     
  • Map->options->display now lets you select names and icons independently for POI and Geoccaches. Found Caches may be turned off or on here.
  • The scrollbars don't act right. At item #17, the elevator jumps back to the top of the shaft on either a forward or backward scroll. Confirmed this defect is present in original x400 and x600 firmware, so this isn't new.
  • The text dialogue widget now lets you enter non-ASCII characters. but there is a disconnect in the character sets used on the "keypad' and in the display itself. It appears to be the Latin -1 (ISO 8859-1) character set. So you can now type, for example,
    • Ò Capital O, grave accent ("Ò")
    • Ó Capital O, acute accent ("Ó")
    • Ô Capital O, circumflex accent ("Ô")
    • Õ Capital O, tilde ("Õ")
    • Ö Capital O, dieresis or umlaut mark ("Ö")

    and they'll show up in the text field, but the labels on the keypad are utterly indistinguishable. They're all an undecorated capital O

    [*] When creating a waypoint, there are options for 'save' (save to current waypt file) and 'save as' which opens the familiar 'pick a file' dialogue.

The unit keeps track of the found list by creating an additional file. For foo.gs, it will create foo.fnd that appears to contain 16 byte records of the form:

$ hd /tmp/*.fnd

000000 47 43 4a 57 41 5a 20 20 77 2a ca 30 01 3a 0f 20 >GCJWAZ w*.0.:. <

000010 47 43 50 59 54 58 20 20 f2 29 ca 30 01 3a 0f 20 >GCPYTX .).0.:. <

 

If I cared, I'd probably reverse engineer those trailing bytes and add GPSBabel support for it Just Because.

 

I'll see if I still have a license to use DR on that and see if the routing functionality got some much needed attention. I did a side-by-side comparison of a 600 and a 400 to build the above list. (See, Magellan, is that so hard to write down?)

 

The holy grail this doesn't appear to be.

 

Edit: added more to list after "icons". Vertical profile was always there. Explain comparison against 600 and ability to click on icon on map screen.

 

Edit: An earlier version thought at the 200 waypoint with comment thing was finally fixed. It's not. I built a *.upt of 4275 waypoints with comments (after fixing a bug in GPSBabel) and had GPSBabel sort them. I set the unit to sort. The first waypoint without a comment was #201. The last waypoint displayed was #500.

 

Edit: Note that scrollbars act funky.

 

Edit: Icon corruptions in pick lists when scrolling ARE still subject to corruption. Add internationalization and 'save as' observations.

 

Edit: Note that elevator sizing problem is old, not new.

Edited by robertlipe
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northernpenguin

+northernpenguin

Posted
Posted
[*]On the geocache screen, there is now a "found" button.  This changes the icon to add a checkmark and makes it disappear from the list. 

[*] Waypoint projection was added back.

Well that cures two of the larger problems for me. So I'm looking forward to this firmware. Only one problem --- I went out and got a 600 (read: Magellan, you got more money from me....). Hopefully, fingers crossed, the 600 (and 500) firmware is right around the corner. Perhaps - August? <_<

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robertlipe

robertlipe

Posted
Posted
Well that cures two of the larger problems for me.

I've not yet evaluated the sensor handling (since the 600 build isn't out yet) or the Street Routing handling, but it's not enough to bring me back into the fold. I'm glad it solves problems for some percentage of the installed base, though.

the 600 (and 500) firmware is right around the corner.

If I were a gamblin' man (which, after years of experience with this company, I should know better...) I'd say it probably is.

 

The 500 and the 600 almost surely share the same firmware. (Gold is to Plat as 500 is to 600 and they share the same firmware.) So perhaps if they're doing something radical like making the compass speed sensitive - like folks have asked for years - it's going to be a bit behind the 400 which is probably pretty darned close to the 210 which they'd have just sent through a QA cycle.

 

Disclaimer: crystal ball utterances are less meaningful than behavioural observations...

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DocW

+DocW

Posted
Posted
Well that cures two of the larger problems for me.

I've not yet evaluated the sensor handling (since the 600 build isn't out yet) or the Street Routing handling, but it's not enough to bring me back into the fold. I'm glad it solves problems for some percentage of the installed base, though.

the 600 (and 500) firmware is right around the corner.

If I were a gamblin' man (which, after years of experience with this company, I should know better...) I'd say it probably is.

 

The 500 and the 600 almost surely share the same firmware. (Gold is to Plat as 500 is to 600 and they share the same firmware.) So perhaps if they're doing something radical like making the compass speed sensitive - like folks have asked for years - it's going to be a bit behind the 400 which is probably pretty darned close to the 210 which they'd have just sent through a QA cycle.

 

Disclaimer: crystal ball utterances are less meaningful than behavioural observations...

Hope dies at last! (Or Garmin's x units w memory cards arrive on the market) <_<

 

Thanks Robert for this fast first glance of the new functionality, will use them as a basis for a translation for the german eXplorist community.

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robertlipe

robertlipe

Posted
Posted
Hope dies at last! (Or Garmin's x units w memory cards arrive on the market) <_<

 

I've already said I'm not a gamblin' man, but if asked which we'll see first, a sensible behaving Explorist or a Garmin with expandable memory and a receiver that doesn't suck, I know where my money will be.

 

The "D0tCom Buglist' has a lot of things I can't readily test here at my desk, but it looks like a pretty small percentage that got addressed. Of the ones I can see:

 

Minor 2 - Warning now given on > 200 caches. (No warning for > 500 upt.)

Minor 6 - Now have option for turning labels off and on.

Enhancement 8 - Projection from 330 era units grafted back in

Enhancement 23 - kinda. You can't edit, but you can mark found, albeit in a clumsy way.

 

There may be more than 4 but the crazy number of required keypresses is still there.

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D0T-C0M

+D0T-C0M

Posted
Posted (edited)
BTW, DocW (or others) do notice that I'm going to keep editing that post - with a changelog at the bottom - as we dicsover more.  I'll eventually move it to one of the FAQs.

Robert, you wont be able to re-edit that post after I think 24 hours unless you have special permissions, thats why I used externally link images in my buglist so that I could edit the images. Although I havent been abe to keep the buglist up to date as my laptop has been out for repair after dropping it, I should get it back in 2 weeks and $650 less money in my pocket. Once it get back I will probably go through every post one by one and bring it up to date.

Edited by D0T-C0M
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geognerd

+geognerd

Posted
Posted
[*] The scrollbars don't act right.  At item #17, the elevator jumps back to the top of the shaft on either a forward or backward scroll.

Just verified this on my 400 with factory firmware. This minor issue apparently existed before and is not caused by the firmware update. Basically, the "elevator" doesn't change to the right size (shrunken) in the scroll bar until after item 17 in a list of 100-odd POIs I have saved in a file. After that, the elevator remains the right size adjusted for the length of the list as I scroll through the rest of the POIs.

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Jhwk

+Jhwk

Posted
Posted (edited)

so, no big developments :wacko:

minor tweaks, capability added back in

looks sad for the much anticipated 600 update :(

 

you know, when most companies send out "patches" they tell you what fixes were made or what bugs they addressed. I don't like this version of discovery learning.

Edited by Jhwk
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GOT GPS?

+GOT GPS?

Posted
Posted (edited)
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

 

Thales Navigation has recently redesigned this website. Some URLs may now be out-dated.

 

You will be automatically redirected to the Sitemap of the new website.

 

ODD stuff here

 

I found that the original LINK in this Thread still works:

http://www.magellangps.com/en/support/prod...plorist_400.asp

Edited by GOT GPS?
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