theYBLEGAL

1.6.11r2 has a date restriction.

What's the point John? It's been hacked ages ago...reminds me of Microsoft products; broken, and unfixable (or, never going to be fixed).

DC_Legacy

I noticed this yesterday too....easy fix (i use to work at a software vendor), set the date in Windows back a month or year.....it'll trick the software into thinking it's at an earlier date prior to the date it was preset to expire apparently..... It works to get it going.....now John C needs to at least re-write a version for this issue amongst other issues that do have work arounds

theYBLEGAL

Ya, I rolled the date back to allow me to open it too.

I own a computer sales and service company...

He should probably rewrite from scratch, or be more responsive to technical feedback so problems can be resolved.

Reality is, I'm sure he's a busy guy. I have projects I can't keep up with too. That's life. That being said, John's made a massive contribution to society by providing the tools at all. Even with them being buggy, it's wonderful it's free.

But I would have liked to see more documentation. Blindly changing settings to observe effect is fun, but unnecessary. Or maybe even a changelog? These are basic items that accompany any software application.

Maybe it's just because I've watched so much time pass, and the lack of progression, but I'd say throw in the towel, and don't waste your time trying to prevent theft if you can't take the time to fix the core purpose.

DC_Legacy

I feel that Crome still has alot of potential is given enough attention toward the current bugs and features that could be added to make it rival Neptune & Hondata.

John C has thrown in the towel and has for a while but I wonder if he could be contacted and if perhaps the rights to the software platform could be bought since he's so little vested in this now so someone else could pickup where he left off with all the app's shortcomings to revise it and make it an app tuners will want to use once again...call it Crome V2

DC_Legacy

btw....I noticed your URL in your avatar and noticed your in North Western IN....where abouts exactly? I ask because I now work for a wireless ISP who now owns Fairnet LLC if your familiar with them out of Monticello IN?

theYBLEGAL

I read either you or Vegas posted about how they love the Crome interface, and I completely agree. It's intuitive.

That really would be nice if the work could be continued. Open source it. Or maybe just let it leak anonymously. It's super easy these days. If we can't find John to fix it, no one will find him when it's leaked lol..

Maybe then PGMFI could be properly resurrected and the free sharing of high class information could continue once more. But, bet that never happens

theYBLEGAL

Monticello isn't very far from me. Portage Indiana over here. Never heard of Fairnet, but then again we are pretty urban. We only have ATT, Comcast, etc. The big ones, big monopolies.

But if you're ever in the area or need something, shoot me a message. We do cruises and racing in the summer. WMHM every year!

DC_Legacy

right on! If I'm ever in the area which would more than likely be work related I'll do that.

DC_Legacy

Yeah PGMFI pretty much died when Crome fell behind and Cui went MIA... I could see this happening if enough determined people started working on it in open source or rather took the underlying coding itself, revamped it with all the right fixes and re-released it under a different name/alias......Time will tell but than again, now adays most aren't really that interested in exploring the Honda OBD1 ECU since its already been done and so now its just a matter of $$ to get all the right HW and a tune to get someones ride going but as I said, I'd be inclined myself to get into the inner workings of Crome to do such a thing....

rvs51

You can download 1.6.12 at the Crome website.

OneBadTurboCRV

IIRC - VegasInvasion had already tried to purchase the rights to CROME and Cui refused. He also won't open source it either. What's sad is most people can work around and unlock the features for free if you know what you are doing. What's pure bullshit though, is that people like myself that LEGITIMATELY purchased a DEALER license suffer the same glitches with Gold ROMs that people that hacked their way into Pro / Dealer versions.

Others and myself have tried to contact him over the years about different issues and the guy never responds. You would think at some point this guy would have gotten his *** kicked for screwing over legitimate supporters because he lost interest of a college project. Obviously I had enough faith in the program to purchase the Dealer version, but it feels like a direct personal insult to have him screw with us to this day and not fix ****.

However, with all that crying out of the way I do still MUCH prefer the GUI over any other software out there. It's simplicity and refined look is much better than anything in the sub $1k Honda EMS world. It's just a damn shame without a doubt. IF, and that's a HUGE IF, he really was smart he would sell the rights while it is still barely worth anything. OBD-1 cars are dropping like flies and people are moving on to much better things and soon the D & B series that everyone has loved for DECADES will be old memories not even worth mentioning and CROME will still be the laughing stock of the tuning world.

theYBLEGAL

I agree completely. And I see him "screw with you" in the sense that, he just obviously posted the 1.6.12 update to fix the date restriction. But yet, cannot comment on fixing what you request, someone who's paid money.

Sell it John!

DC_Legacy

It doesn't surprise me that VI tried to do so with his knowledge of Crome... The underlying code is easy enough for those with a few free and old coding tools to crack too. As far as the bugs, the High Cam Ign issues have been the biggest I've seen and I found a work-around for that recently that I mentioned in another thread.

Certainly agree here....Cui needs to accept the fact that theirs going to be little to no revenue he can generate as we keep going forward into the Future and so he should just sell what little equity he has in the platform since he seems to think people will always keep buying the Pro version as a beginners tool into OBD1 Honda tuning....

booboo782

DC, do you have any programming experience? I'm a Web Developer/User Experience Designer by day, and have been building OBD1 Hondas on the side for 10 years, and tuning for the last few years. I have often dreamed about building an open source app for OBD1 ECUs despite the negatives you stated, with all the major core features needed to get going, get the community behind it, keeping it well documented and modular so other developers can create and share their own plugins to make its extensibility almost unlimitied essentially future proofing the app. There have got to be more turbo Honda developers out there that would get on board with this. If there are any others out there reading this, lets do it!

You are right though, it would be nice to have some source code to start with instead of building from scratch.

DC_Legacy

Im a networker by profession for WISP however I've always dabbled in programming and have worked for a software company doing remote support but that was medical records mgmt software.....anyway I've been into building OBD1 Honda's for roughly 8 yrs myself, and consider myself a novice tuner at this point.....

Mega squirt would be the basis for such a system and I would love to be a part of it.....on J32a.org theirs a shop in NY thats developed a system using mega squirt for the J series, I haven't kept up on it but I imagine it's made more head way since AEM is the only other alternative and doesn't really have as solid of a system for the J since it was based on their F20c ECU.....

I wish I could recall the name of this outfit but I know they also developed a version for the K series too before putting their focus on the J.....

To do this for OBD1 platforms should be that much easier I imagine

booboo782

Oooh we need to get in touch with them. Might give us a good start. If you remember any info on them PM me. I'd like to start turning over rocks and see what kinda trouble we could get into with this thing.

If anybody else has any interest or skills they would like to donate in an open source, plugin-centric, community-supported, OBD1 app project like what we are talking about, holler. Let's see if there is any interest.

DC_Legacy

Will do....if you look on J32a.org you might find them....I know the guy once posted stuff here too but he revoked alot of his technical offerings because he figured he had alot to lose being a sort of pioneer to that up and coming crowd and didnt want others taking his ideas and running with it. They do swap kits and alot of J related fabrication including harnesses too.......I'll search and get back to ya on it. I don't believe this guy will be willing to give any info on how to reverse engineer their system though but honestly all that's needed is a system from DIYautotune that would make a good fit.....the software side of things im sure could be developed once the HW selection is made.

also, I forgot, with Hondata you can tune some J series stuff thats 2007 and newer but dont quote me on it.....it involves linking into the CAN BUS for those vehicles

booboo782

Haha. Well, we would be by no means pioneers. We're only about 15 years late to the party.

DC_Legacy

RPM systems....that's the company

RPM SYSTEMS - Parts / ECT

Ofcourse while looking for this on J32a.com (sorry said .org before) I noted another j series ecu from a place called J&R......I'm sure theirs other outfits jumping on in at this point but many are using Mega Squirt as the underlying system and it makes sense rather than sourcing all components your self not to mention the electrical engineering aspect of board design, etc.....

As far as the software end, like I said, some platforms such as Crome could be reverse engineered and then worked upon if given the right attention I feel and who knows or rather study the coding to create something much better.

DC_Legacy

Here we go -

DIYPNP Nippon Denso 76pin Unassembled Kit DIYAutoTune.com

spAdam

iTrader: (1)

^That would be nice. Better processor, easier move to individual coils, true speed density, etc.

The OBD1 processors are ancient and really hamper adding more advanced features. Honda did a great job of working around their limited capabilities by using lookup tables, but you really just need more horsepower to do a correct VE model based SD strategy. Even that was 20+ years ago.

Would be nice to have at some sort of pseudo-OBD2 as well. Could be easily achieved, even just externally if CANbus is available... That would be the difference between me selling or keeping my daily if I get a job outside of this god forsaken swamp.

DC_Legacy

Yeah I've always wanted to throw one of these together and see what all is possible from these DIY kits, I'm confident they're likely every bit as powerful as some standalones and I'm thinking about maybe shelling out some cash after tax season to put one together to play around with. I might resort to your feed back too if you didnt mind, I know you have a high aptitude for this side of things