[Kunzite]

Tracking a subject is something a dragonfly can do better than a Pentax camera. And it didn't even have a programmer involved unless you are adherent to intelligent design. So why is that?
I take it managers are something you programmers look down on. My CONSTRUCTIVE criticism on business practices have nothing to do with how hard or not hard it is to program something. Am I a customer or a manager? In Both cases I don't care about that. Make it work or I'll hire someone else. The company is not always right. Of course i could not be critical at all about Camera's that I would buy a Sony with a Hasselblad logo and a nice wooden grip en say it is the best camera in the world. I would also buy all those fantastic new Meyer optik lenses.

Give me a team, funding and several hundred million years and I'll surely manage to duplicate the dragonfly's performance. (I'm actually confident I can do it faster).

There are managers and managers... some understand the domain, others don't (and the latter can do much harm). See stevebrot's post about it (and check Dilbert).
Downplaying the effort is not a good manager's tactic; it's asking people to underestimate their task - and who would get blamed as the deadline is nearing? "Make it work or I'll hire someone else" will destroy the best team; it's not a good manager's tactic.

I'm afraid there's nothing constructive in saying that something should've been available before it was developed, or that something complex is simple.

---------- Post added 18-04-18 at 10:45 AM ----------

Are you shure? As far as I understand,it's the main processor on the board, doing all the management, usb, sd-cards, focussing - with the data from the subsystems - and as one of the main tasks image processing. The AU is in the direct path from sensor to the prime IV doing a special signal preprocessing of the image data (Ricoh interview) and therefore freeing capacity on the main processor.

I didn't know / see another processor on the board

Yeah, it has to be the PRIME.

[BigMackCam]

Give me a team, funding and several hundred million years and I'll surely manage to duplicate the dragonfly's performance. (I'm actually confident I can do it faster).

Will you be offering that as a free firmware upgrade, Alex?

[D1N0]

Give me a team, funding and several hundred million years and I'll surely manage to duplicate the dragonfly's performance. (I'm actually confident I can do it faster).

In that case I am no longer a manager but a customer who is not willing to wait a million years or a hundred or ten and i'll buy a Nikon. Problem solved. (If i needed it. I mostly shoot manual so i really couldn't care less about focus tracking personally and I am certainly not going to dish out 500+ euro's for it after already spending of 2000 on the camera while the new one has it in the firmware and doesn't cost more, but as a brand Pentax needs it.)

[Kunzite]

I would rather buy some beer, but what does it has to do with the dragonfly's abilities?
(you're not trying to suggest that Nikon has them... are you?)

https://xkcd.com/1425/

[D1N0]

Close enough.

[joergens.mi]

I assumed there's already a CPU on the mainboard to run the camera and they buy the customized PRIME image processor from Socionext to go with it ... no?

As far as I know the Prime IV is a Pentax development and the main processor. It is a System on a Chip ( System on a chip - Wikipedia ), consisting of a single or multiprozessor core, usb , AD, DA, hdmi, stepper motor, ram access, built by some one else. (there is only one firmware on this camera)

This may be the reason for the USB2 on the K-1 versus USB3 on K3. There was a flaw in the specification and the tape out (final drawing) to vendor was done. It is very expensive to stop a tape out and you must be lucky to get the next open slot, half a year or a year later, for production.

[thibs]

As far as I know the Prime IV is a Pentax development and the main processor. It is a System on a Chip ( System on a chip - Wikipedia ), consisting of a single or multiprozessor core, usb , AD, DA, hdmi, stepper motor, ram access, built by some one else. (there is only one firmware on this camera)

Nope, it is Socionext chip, same as Nikon's btw, whatever the sticker they like to put on it. Leica, at least some time ago, used it too afaict.

[Mistral75]

Indeed, Leica (Maestro), Nikon (Expeed), Pentax (Prime) and Sigma (True) all use Socionext Milbeaut image signal processors.

Image Signal Processor (Milbeaut®) | Socionext Inc.

[stevebrot]

I assumed there's already a CPU on the mainboard to run the camera and they buy the customized PRIME image processor from Socionext to go with it ... no?

I would assume that neither the PRIME engine nor the AF controllers are other than in-house efforts. Both tend to be highly proprietary and, I suspect, not derivative.

Edit: As noted above, the main processor for Pentax cameras is Milbeaut with that product defining many of our camera's features and limitations...unless overridden, of course, by specialty chips. Where the critical guts of "Prime" lives is hard to say with any certainty without a full dissection of the innards. It is a fairly certain guess that things like the exceptional AF of the Nikon D500 are not the result of tweaking off-the-shelf capabilities from Socionext.


Steve

[stevebrot]

"Make it work or I'll hire someone else" will destroy the best team; it's not a good manager's tactic.

Dang! I worked for that guy!


Steve

[joergens.mi]

Nope, it is Socionext chip, same as Nikon's btw, whatever the sticker they like to put on it. Leica, at least some time ago, used it too afaict.

As I said before it is a System on a chip ( System on a chip - Wikipedia ). Pentax decided to use a Milbeaut core (Semiconductor intellectual property core - Wikipedia ) and ordered it by a vendor (Socionext). The ordered a single chip, on this chip is the CPU - the Milbeaut core( Milbeaut - Wikipedia ) - the usb controller, some FPGA circuit, wlan, ram-controller and some other things there are typically some privat circuits on this chip . There a different cores, usb controllers, ram controllers available. This chip is normally exclusively produced for Pentax and not available for others.

Leica (Maestro), Nikon (Expeed), Pentax (Prime) and Sigma (True) do the same, but they select different options an capabilities, therefore this are their processors

[monochrome]

So was it managers who failed to allocate the capital to acquire new machines that could run at production speeds or lens designers, hmmmmmm?

I suppose we could fire the managers who made those capital allocation decisions and hire a manager whose attitude is,”Get it done. I don’t care what it costs!”. Then we’d have our lenses.

[BigMackCam]

I suppose we could fire the managers who made those capital allocation decisions and hire a manager whose attitude is,”Get it done. I don’t care what it costs!”. Then we’d have our lenses.

Right... or, rather, the lenses would be available, but we probably couldn't afford them

[SSGGeezer]

Dang! I worked for that guy!


Steve

Ah, You worked for Major "Zero Defect" also! He comes in lower levels like Captain also, but they can affect your evaluations so you have to try to be tactful with them rather than treating them like a Missouri mule. FYI I was never much for using tact when facts would let me have my say, that is why I retired at the rank I did.

[stevebrot]

and ordered it by a vendor (Socionext)

Ummm...they own the patents and make the chips. Milbeaut is a Socionext product.

Image Signal Processor (Milbeaut®) | Socionext Inc.


Steve

(...Socionext was was formed from a Fujitsu/Panasonic joint venture in 2015 and is privately held by those two entities (along with investors and lenders)...)