Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Discuss older Nikon-based Kodak digital SLRs, including DCS 100, DCS 200, NC2000, DCS 400/600/700-series, etc. Ask questions, post general comments, anecdotes, reviews and user tips.
NikonWeb
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by NikonWeb »

pieroc91 wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2019 2:42 pm We are close folks!
I see you posted this on Youtube recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRyBnOVRm3A

Will you start selling home made DSUs soon? :-)

Jarle
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Hey! thanks for posting it here, i tried but there was some issue with the forum and i couldn't do it.
That was indeed an advance and finally could transfer valid data but just a few pixels, the interface proved to be very slow and overflowed too easily.
The project is not dead and it will never be, is super slow yes but once i manage to store those bits that DCS is ready to shoot.
Right now i'm out of the country once again but when things stabilize i'll be giving it some progress to the DCS.
Thanks to everyone that are following the project
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

It is known that digital imaging testing must be done with the classic picture of Lena Söderberg https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna
I don't have one of those so i draw my best on a CF card case.
Image

Then i put myself to code and to wire the cheapest and chiniest logic analyzer i could get.
Image

And lol and behold!! the first recognizable image from the modern recreation of a DSU.
With all of you... Lena:
Image

Yes, it is a mess.
The image looks like is melting due to a very wrong timing of the CCD,
It is skewed due to the analyzer missing some bytes on the stream because it just decides to ignore my clock signal,
Also because of missing bytes the color information must be discarded,
Exposure is quite a hard thing since i can only get a reading if i expose it at the same time i'm reading it so i have to expose it faster than the sweep is, that means, using a flash.

But hey...
i got to make a picture of my mom's cat
Image

Stay tuned
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Now this is a Lena picture
Image
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

The work contiunes and the advances keep on going, the blooming on the left got corrected, adding a 0.1ms delay between the vertical swipe and the reading got that fixed, there's still some ghost on the left side and some vertical lines are completely missing but i guess that all that is just fine tuning the timings. (cat picture for extra internet points).
Image
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

And the glitches are gone, those wierd artifacts i'm quite sure are induced by the non timed read of my logic analyzer, improving that should improve the circumstances.
Pictured are my NC2000E and half of my D1X.
Image
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

oh yeah, a little bit of fiddling got me to a picture that looks like an actual picture, now the D1X can be seen completely, and i know i'm reading the whole CCD which lets me know that my CCD is in good working order. i'll try to fiddle with the file on a hex editor to see if i can realign each line so i can apply a demosaic filter and see colors.
Image
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Things are moving fast, a lot of tweaking and a sunday code cleaning resulted on the DCS behaving as it should, now the shutter and readout times are the way the should and it takes pictures with the press of the shutter button with the correct speed and image size.
That means a DCS cat picture can be achieved.
Image
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

fine tuning a little bit the reading and now i have some color, due to jitter i also have color banding but hey... even the DCS appreciates the red TrackPoint of a ThinkPad.
Image
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

further tinkering adds support for more the one ISO setting, it should have 100, 200, 400 and 800, i could only get two working, the other two resulted in complete white pictures, it might have some problem on the preamp. On a side note i noticed the sensor to be almost not responsive to blue light, maybe the pigments went dead?
Image
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Well some little bit of tweaking and the artifacts are almost gone, the exposure happens when it should, timings are as fast as they can, ISO setting somewhat works, i'm happy enough with the FPGA side that i think is time to start working on the storage side.
For this i'll be using an ESP32-Cam since it already has enough RAM, an SD card slot, an 8-bit parellel sync'd input and enough horse power to run 500 original DCSs.
I've never coded on the ESP so this is the beginning of a whole new journey, it might be slow, it might be cumbersome, but hey it's a huge step closer of having a modern version of the DCS.

A closer pic of my D1x taken with an Nikkor-ED AI-s 180mm f2.8 and the DCS on the actual state.
Image
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
Stan Disbrow
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

It is coming along nicely. :)

Stan
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pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Hi Stan! so glad to see i’m not the last one over here. :D
Thanks for the bumps.
So… since you are here, do you mind if i ask you a few questions on the design?
The development reached a point where i have to make some decisions and since you are far more experienced than me, your knowledge can be very valuable.
I have the idea of using a PSRam over QSPI to buffer the frame and then read the same PSRam with another uC, i have an ESP32 laying around that i can hook to the same QSPI bus and make it dump all the RAM content to an SD.
Ideally speaking i should send the data to the uC and make it buffer then save on its own but the ESP32 has this specific type i/o (i2c, i2s, spi, etc.) that needs some heavy knowledge on the guts to allow the code to DMA all that mixed ports data in some usable way to read a fast parallel 8 bit sample.
Choosing another uC is a viable choice too but since i’m in argentina my only choices are the ESP i have, the most basic STM32, some arduino with atmega328 or maybe a raspberry pico.

Anyway, so glad to see someone else.
thanks for your comment, any help is really appreciated!
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by NikonWeb »

I'm still here as well! In fact, I've just added a few new users, after dpreview announced their closing.

Jarle
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by SQLGuy »

pieroc91 wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:31 am On a side note i noticed the sensor to be almost not responsive to blue light, maybe the pigments went dead?
Image
Maoby, who is a vintage digital collector from Canada, has posted some comparisons with his DCS100 and other cameras. This is one vs a D500: https://www.flickr.com/photos/maoby/462 ... 960370835/

In his shots, he's getting some blue, but very little green. I don't know/remember how he is processing these raws to jpg. It may be that in his case, and maybe in your case, too, the demosaicing process is not correctly interpolating channel signals to adjust for color response of the channels, crosstalk, etc...

Maybe try pure red, green, and blue captures, with filters, or test patches, to see how the sensor + CFA are responding to those colors?

Hmmm... just thought that maybe these early cameras didn't use RGGB CFAs. Sure enough, the DCS Story says the M3 used a 3G RGB CFA. Not sure what that is, but it may be this: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5374956A/en
Hobbyist photographer. Software developer by day. Something of a collector of both film and digital cameras. Enjoy working with obsolete technology.
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