How to get iBook G4 with Kismac and Garmin GPSMap 60cx to work together.
I had earlier bought the Garmin GPSMap 60cx which has an USB-connection, but for my dissapointment it weren’t talking the default NMEA-language. It used the Garmin’s own proprietary-language instead which was useless for me. It would talk NMEA only from the serial-bus. It would have been nice, if it had a builtin ’serial to usb’-converter.
What I needed to do, was to get the Garmin’s serial-bus connected to my iBook which has only usb-ports. I would need to get Garmin’s own serial cable and ’serial to usb’-adapter for my mac. The Garmin’s cable was easy to get, but the adapter were more tricky, because most of the adapters were only for windows. Finally I found Prodige’s adapter which were told to be compatible with Macs and it had drivers with it. It used prolific’s chips.
Needed cables:
Prodige USB-serial-adapter RS232 DB9 male
Garmin PC interface cable (RS232 serial port connector)
For the usb-serial-adapter I tried the bundled drivers, but those were useless. I googled around and tried lot’s of things but none seemed to work. Finally I found a working solution.
1. Download and install a working driver from here (ver. 2.1.10 for PPC is mirrored here)
2. Reboot for good measure
3. Plugin the adapter and test
The quoted post:
I was frustrated, bitter and thinking of taking someone’s life; but now I’m smug and happy and the birds are singing outside my window. What finally worked for me: PB G4, OSX 10.3.9, IOGear-232A (model GUC232A), various Garmin GPSs’, and http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP/MacOSX/FTDIUSBSerialDriver_v2_1_0.dmg.
I’ve tried every other revision of every other driver, newer and older, including v1.1.0b1, and although PL2303_1.0.8 showed a tty.usbserial0 in the /dev list, nothing was talking (that I could determine).
Not http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/Download-2.asp?ID=17
Not http://www.ramelectronics.net/download/BF-810/OSX/I edited my /System/Library/Extensions/ProlificUsbSerial.kext/Contents/Info.plist to reflect my System Profiler:USB-Serial Controller:Product ID of 8200, however it does not indicate a Vendor ID at all (so I tried 1367 and any others on this list). I deleted the two /System/Library/Extensions.* files, reloaded (sudo kextload -v /System/Library/Extensions/ProlificUsbSerial.kext) and rebooted. Still nothing!!! I even tried cursing and praying (but may have done those out of order).
Then I:
1. Downloaded and installed FTDIUSBSerialDriver_v2_1_0,
2. Deleted the ../Extensions.* files for good measure,
3. sudo kextload -v /System/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext (no editing),
4. Rebooted for good measure,
5. and now I’m singing in the sunshine. A glimpse into the new /System/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver/Contents/Info.plist shows a plethora of supported devices. Apparently if a rifle doesn’t work, try a shotgun.I had earlier gotten my Garmin to talk with VPC7 WinXP Pro. Now I want to try to get it to work with System 9 so I can use http://www.gpsy.com/. Whoops! It’s gone native too! Guess I was too late. Life is sweet.
Thanks to everyone who has posted on this string and encouragement to everyone who follows.Those with determination shall persevere!