How to reprogram a GPS
This is how you can update the GPS software in your cheap Chinese GPS.
First it is important to note that almost all GPSs run on WindowsCE which is Windows compact edition. Most of them are locked into the GPS software but if you order one from Chinavasion.com or ebay or you figure out how to unlock yours, you can exit to a Windows desktop. You can actually do quite a bit from there, but it's not really worth the effort. I toyed around with a game emulator, SCUMM I think, but none of the games I got running would work right without a controller.
Now that we know they all run on the same platform, we can try and swap out the existing GPS software for something with maps in our area. For some reason there was no route by car from Canada to Europe. If you could find the maps for your area, for the existing program, then you could just swap the map files. I couldn't find them for the same version but I found a newer version with North American maps.
For the iGo8 software there is a file called shell.ini it should have something like
\ResidentFlash\IGo8\iGO8.exe
and you should have an iGO8 folder with the iGO8.exe in it. If not fix the path either in the file or rename the folder etc.
Inside the iGO8 folder there is a file sys.txt that contains most of you settings for the hardware. This is pretty much the key to transferring the software from one device to another with different hardware. For my portable GPS I'm using the following sys.txt
[folders]
[rawdisplay]
screen_x=480
screen_y=272
[interface]
maxzoom2d=6000000
show_exit=1
;[gps]
;port="1"
;baud="4800"
Once i can find a card reader I'll get the sys.txt from my car stereo. I had to modify several of the fields to get it working. Most of the settings are pretty obvious, the gps section is commented out so likely the default worked with that portable GPS. For the car GPS it took a few tries before I found the right port and it detected the antenna. It also took quite a bit of trial and error to find the right display resolution, having a laptop with a card reader is a bonus.
Now the only reason I was forced to guess at theses settings is that my device was not in the list of sys settings located inside the data.zip archive in the iGO8 folder. I:\iGO8\data.zip\config\devices even if you don't find your device there should be something similar and with that many examples it's really not that hard to figure out.
Another possible issue could be that you will not have enough space for the new software on your device. If you look in the iGO8\content\map folder your will see all of the map files what I did was pick somewhere your are never going to drive to and delete the file...you can free up quite a bit of space this way...if you don't plan on traveling too far. There are also voices in the voices folder that can be deleted or added, I was able to add a few new voices quite easily.
too be continued....