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Pimp my Garmin: Turning your Fenix 5 Plus into a D2 Delta pilot watch

Posted by Markus Birth on

A while ago I was fed up with Android Wear smartwatches and bought a Garmin Fenix 5 Plus. After using it for a while I started to explore the possibilities beyond the manufacturer specifications. This lead to a firmware patcher based upon work from Alex Whiter (who sadly passed in 2019). That patcher modified the firmware update file and disabled the license check for Garmin Maps. After installing a patched firmware, you were able to use any downloaded Garmin map on the watch without having to buy a license. Alex himself also offered a patcher to enable the use of custom made JNX "BirdsEye" files. (These JNX files can be easily created with SAS.Planet / SAS.Планета, a Windows tool to download map tiles and export them to different formats.)

These patchers sparked my interest in the firmware format as I've noticed they not only patched the few Bytes in the code but also modified other areas in the file.

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Pimp my scope: Unlocking Software Features in a Tektronix TDS784D

Posted by Markus Birth on

A while ago I've acquired an old Tektronix TDS784D oscilloscope. Originally, it came with these enabled options:

  • 05 - Video Trigger
  • 13 - Centronics and RS232 interface
  • 1F - Floppy disk drive
  • 1M - Memory upgrade x1
  • 2F - Maths/FFT, differentiation features

While this already is a lot, there's still option 2C (Comm signal analyser) which is a pure-software option. (In later production runs, the device might also already contain the necessary hardware for the bigger memory option 2M. Check whether your serial number starts with B4xxx. Mine didn't.)

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Backup Wii games to USB HDD

Posted by Markus Birth on
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