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From: RobertB on 8 Apr 2010 02:24
On Apr 7, 10:46 am, Vanessa Ezekowitz <vanessaezekow...(a)gmail.com>
wrote:

> It was sometimes called the "1.0" camera, as shortly thereafter came the "version 2" line.
>
> I only know it as the "original" B&W Connectix QuickCam, and afaik they all have that rectangular bezel around a fixed focal length lens.

A couple of years ago I helped a Czech friend
obtain a color parallel Quickcam from eBay.
When he received it, he tried it out and found that
it was incompatible with Quickscan. So it seems
that only the B & W camera will do.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
July 24-25 CommVEx v6 2010 - http://www.commodore.ca/forum
and click on ComVEX
From: Vanessa Ezekowitz on 8 Apr 2010 12:27
On Wed, 7 Apr 2010 23:24:03 -0700 (PDT)
RobertB <rbernardo(a)iglou.com> wrote:

> On Apr 7, 10:46 am, Vanessa Ezekowitz <vanessaezekow...(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > It was sometimes called the "1.0" camera, as shortly thereafter came the
> > "version 2" line.
> >
> > I only know it as the "original" B&W Connectix QuickCam, and afaik they
> > all have that rectangular bezel around a fixed focal length lens.
>
> A couple of years ago I helped a Czech friend obtain a color parallel
> Quickcam from eBay. When he received it, he tried it out and found that
> it was incompatible with Quickscan. So it seems that only the B & W
> camera will do.

I hope he was at least able to use that camera elsewhere?

At any rate, you are correct. There are a few reasons behind this, though. For one, the B&W camera was significantly cheaper. ;-) The big problem though was hardware itself. I needed a lot of I/O lines to talk to and control the camera, but I was afraid to start shoving experimental stuff into the Expansion Port, so I stuck with the User Port.

I had PA2 and /PA3 serving as handshake lines, SP1 for the camera's /Reset signal, SP2 as my control line for the 4066 (to bank the Nybble Bus in and out), and PB0-7 as my Data Bus when sending commands, and as the Nybble Bus when receiving image data from the camera.

The problem with the color camera is that there are two lines on the PC parallel port that the B&W camera doesn't use, but which the color camera needs for additional handshaking. At the time, I couldn't think of a way to add the missing lines to the interface, though I had a couple of ideas that might have worked. I never got to implement them though.

I had planned to make an Expansion Port version (the "G2" as I planned to call it), which would have afforded me as many I/O lines as I wanted, but life being what it is, Connectix/Logitech quit making the cameras, and I eventually kinda got sidetracked anyway. :-)

All of this led to the driver software only knowing how to handle 4-bit greyscale data from only the B&W model. In retrospect, I'm glad I was able to get at least that much, but I do wish I'd had the opportunity to buy up a whole bunch of those cameras, considering how damned hard they are to find now.

(I finally found two leads, each of whom appears to have exactly one camera.. Neither of them has responded to my requests, yet.)

--
"There are some things in life worth obsessing over. Most
things aren't, and when you learn that, life improves."
http://starbase.globalpc.net/~ezekowitz
Vanessa E. <vanDEesLEsaTEezTHekISowitz(a)gmail.com>
(Delete the obvious to email me)


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From: RobertB on 9 Apr 2010 16:44
On Apr 8, 9:27 am, Vanessa Ezekowitz <vanessaezekow...(a)gmail.com>
wrote:

> At any rate, you are correct.  There are a few reasons behind this, though.  For one, the B&W camera was significantly cheaper.  ;-)  The big problem though was hardware itself.  I needed a lot of I/O lines to talk to and control the camera, but I was afraid to start shoving experimental stuff into the Expansion Port, so I stuck with the User Port.

(snip)

Thanks for the detailed explanations, Vanessa.

> ...I do wish I'd had the opportunity to buy up a whole bunch of those cameras, considering how damned hard they are to find now.
>
> (I finally found two leads, each of whom appears to have exactly one camera.  Neither of them has responded to my requests, yet.)

:)

Good luck,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
July 24-25 CommVEx v6 2010 - http://www.commodore.ca/forum
and click on ComVEX
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