Re: KLN94 Route / Waypoint upload

 Peter R. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>> Would one of the card readers/writers for a compact flash camera work?
>> They treat the cards like a hard drive too.  
>
>No, the card reader has to have special firmware installed by Honeywell.  
>Honeywell also claims that the compact flash card needs to be initialized 
>by them, which then makes the blank, store-bought card cost US $100!  
>
>When I confronted them on the cost of purchasing an extra card, they backed 
>down and gave it to me for free.

The KLN94 is a standard CF flash card, but it uses a non-DOS
(non-Windows) filing system. Most of the cheap USB-attached digital
camera flash media writers can't handle this nonstandard file system;
the Sandisk writer evidently can.

It is an anti-piracy measure because you can order new database flash
cards from Honeywell without having to supply your KLN94 serial
number. So if someone figured out how to duplicate these KLN94 CF
cards, they could pirate the Jepp database by purchasing one copy and
making unlimited extra copies onto cheap CF cards.

Same goes for the KMD550 flash card, which is an off the shelf Intel
flash cartridge. Pretty rare as far as I can tell, not used by any
consumer product.

It costs me US$400 to do a one-time update of these two cards. There
is an internet download option for the KLN94 (either direct into the
unit or via the Sandisk card writer, and obviously this does require
your KLN94 S/N to be supplied) but for the KMD550 one has to purchase
a new card. WHO designed the KMD550 with such a bizzare data
cartridge...?


Peter.
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