Sorry Cane Pole, didn’t know I was avoiding answering any questions.

Yes you can manage GPS data (Waypoints, Trackplots and Routes) on the HumminbirdPC program.

I don’t think that at the time the program was being developed that anyone had any thoughts about being able to display the bitmap images. Our units did not have the ability to save screen snapshots when HummPC was originally being written.

You can play back the sonar recordings on your unit, but not on your PC with or without the HummPC program. Again, when HummPC was originally being written we did not have the recording capability in our units. In the future if there is the capability to play the sonar recordings on your PC, I don’t think that it would have to be a new model unit as all the unit does is saves the data to a file. It would take a new PC program to be able to view it though.

Yes SD card readers do wear out as do the SD memory cards or any other mechanical device. How many times could you take an SD card in and out before it gets to this point? I have no idea but I would bet it is some extremely large number of times as many products use these same card readers that we do.

Adding screen snapshot or sonar recording capabilities to the HumminbirdPC program would take some added code – but I do not have the knowledge to say that it would only be a few lines of code.

I had never heard of any military connection with our products. I do know that someone who works here used to work for the military (besides all of those who have served in the Armed Forces), but that’s it.

At the time HummPC was originally being written, most PCs had serial ports. I also believe that there was some type of royalty or fee that would have had to be paid if we made a USB product at that time.

We have no connection to Johnson Controls. We are a part of Johnson Outdoors Inc. – different set of Johnsons.

No hack for the units but maybe a hack for a program that will allow you to view the sonar recordings is being actively pursued by other side imaging owners on the following web site. I believe they have had some success to. Maybe you guys could give them a hand?
http://www.xumba.scholleco.com/viewtopic.php?t=118