David Carter wrote:
> Hopefully sometime soon, we'll be able to "create" our own personalized
> camera by choosing the optional "extras" or features we want. In the
> same way that some new cars can be personalized at the factory. Without
> having to fatten Leica wallets.
>
A digital camera is just a computer activating functions of a machine
and doing keyboard and file I/O.
If you look into the CHDK group, that's what they have done with Canon
cameras. They have written a version of basic that compiles to run on
the camera processor. As it turns out, there is quite a bit more memory
than the standard processing needs. They research the location of
functions in the firmware and some I/O ports for the hardware, like the
keys. Programs can do calculations, store values in memory, all that stuff.
With CHDK loaded, one may literally write programs to custom operate the
camera. It is, for example, possible to do motion detection, limited, if
desired, to particular area(s), and trigger camera operations based on
it. Quite a number of functions have been written and others are possible.
Several functional limits turn out to be firmware imposed, rather than
hardware limits.
So what you are talking about is already happening. Many of the feature
differences in their cameras are marketing decided feature sets
implemented in firmware.
Moose
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