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04-21-2014, 04:55 PM   #226
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QuoteOriginally posted by mikemike Quote
How about setting up a way for people to vote with their wallets... A donation link for specific cameras in addition to the general one.
This sounds like a great idea. I'd send over some money for the K3 to be considered sooner.

I'm going to ignore the possibility that the people with the most money might not have the most popular camera


QuoteOriginally posted by Giklab Quote
Well... According to Flickr, the cameras rank as K-5 (K-5, K-5 II and K-5 IIs combined), K-30 and K-x. That makes the K-30 (Possibly the K-50 and K-500 are counted here too?) the one to develop for. Would you lookitdat, you alreay have one
When Flickr starts counting the K3 users I'll check out their ranking


Last edited by walgarch; 04-21-2014 at 08:53 PM. Reason: Typo
04-21-2014, 10:41 PM   #227
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So, I've been following this thread for some time, and find it very interesting that Pentax has changed it firmware architecture sometime between the release of the k-5 and the K-30. For me, the largest question is wherever or mot the Q series is covered by the same firmware architecture. For me, this would be an intriguing thing to find out, and may possibly help you with understanding how the firmware works in it entirety, as the Q is simply the most affordable pentax ICL camera available currently.
04-22-2014, 01:41 AM   #228
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I've just looked at the Q10 firmware. It doesn't need decrypting, has lots of helpful text in it and uses an open source toolchain to write software for it. It also uses another completely different language (MIPS).

Given that there are three product ranges built on COMPLETELY different platforms I wonder if they are developed completely separately from another?
04-22-2014, 03:09 AM   #229
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QuoteOriginally posted by Shodan Quote
I've just looked at the Q10 firmware. It doesn't need decrypting, has lots of helpful text in it and uses an open source toolchain to write software for it. It also uses another completely different language (MIPS).

Given that there are three product ranges built on COMPLETELY different platforms I wonder if they are developed completely separately from another?
Shodan, I thank you for taking the time too look at the firmware of the Q. I do also find it highly unusual that Pentax/Ricoh seems to change between software architectures and languages relaticly often. Obviously, rewriting code from scratch can be highly liberating and allows you to avoid writing scripts that are no longer nessacary or is incorrectly written.
Also, I would like to say that I would enjoy being able to help you if possible, even though the processing power available to me is limited and my programing knowledge is only limited to Ruby and C, but nonetheless, if there is anything I could do, just ask and I'll see what I can do!

04-22-2014, 03:58 AM   #230
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QuoteQuote:
Also, I would like to say that I would enjoy being able to help you if possible, even though the processing power available to me is limited and my programing knowledge is only limited to Ruby and C, but nonetheless, if there is anything I could do, just ask and I'll see what I can do!
There are plenty of jobs, check my first post and search for raw2tiff.
04-22-2014, 04:52 AM - 1 Like   #231
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QuoteOriginally posted by Shodan Quote
There are plenty of jobs, check my first post and search for raw2tiff.
Could you explain a little what we should exactly do with raw2tiff? And on what file? I guess we have the have a decrypted firmware first?

By the way, I set up a poll for the camera bodies with ARM processors here:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/258370-poll-what...processor.html
04-25-2014, 06:31 PM   #232
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Good work Shodan, did you hooked some function from dev. menu? Do you know how to recalc chksum or are you still bypassing it? Can you run some module from SD now? I'm forward when we will know how to call some GUI and buttons API calls to be able to write own app module I know, still at the beginning...
Do you have some photos of K-30 body from inside? PCBs, chips, etc?

---------- Post added 04-26-14 at 04:11 AM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by lister6520 Quote
There is no obvious NMEA encoded as ASCII in the bit sequences but I haven;t ruled out it being buried in there somewhere.
Yes, it's some proprietary binary protocol and it's getting complicated but maybe Shodan would be able to reverse some code or enable logging on SD..

QuoteOriginally posted by lister6520 Quote
Whereas this is a typical sequence with the GPS:
<-+_-+-+_00000000_-+_-+_000000000_-+4C50_C0-+-+4C14_C036FF007F-+>
The main content of the message being the C036FF007F in this example.
Hm, it's quite short message to contain lat, lon, alt, azimuth, sat.list...
Please can you trap some more messages and wait until GPS got fix? Then we can compare early messages without valit pos. and later with fix. I would expect zeros first in lat/lon that will change when fix so it would be visible where are they located. Also I could try to replay some sequence via AVR MCU if it will be recognized by cam. Do you think that GPS module only transmit, no receive?

QuoteOriginally posted by lister6520 Quote
In addition there is occasionally a longer ,essage such as this one:
<000000300000000000000000000000036FF30DF800000000000018060FF8000007F80E6FFC07F80CC7F9980F9FFFFE07F800000F7-+-+4C14_C036FF006D-+>
I'm not sure how often it occurs but it seems somewhat irregular.
How much often?

QuoteOriginally posted by lister6520 Quote
On another note I think I figured out why the extension cables cause problems and also why some third party flashes can be unreliable. It is just a silly 'mechanical' problem regarding the way the ground terminal connects and black paint on the camera hotshoe bracket.
Yes I have some problems when contacting a scope gnd crocodile to it...

04-26-2014, 12:39 AM   #233
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QuoteQuote:
Good work Shodan, did you hooked some function from dev. menu? Do you know how to recalc chksum or are you still bypassing it? Can you run some module from SD now? I'm forward when we will know how to call some GUI and buttons API calls to be able to write own app module I know, still at the beginning...
Do you have some photos of K-30 body from inside? PCBs, chips, etc?
Yep, I hooked a few actually. Yes I can correctly recalculate the checksum, the tool I released has been able to do this for sometime. Running a module from the SD is on the roadmap to do very soon.

I think I've done enough to get button calls, just don't know what all the IDs are.

As for photos from the inside - I haven't opened it yet!
04-30-2014, 10:13 AM   #234
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QuoteOriginally posted by RayeR Quote
.........

[/COLOR]

Yes, it's some proprietary binary protocol and it's getting complicated but maybe Shodan would be able to reverse some code or enable logging on SD..

Hm, it's quite short message to contain lat, lon, alt, azimuth, sat.list...
Please can you trap some more messages and wait until GPS got fix? Then we can compare early messages without valit pos. and later with fix. I would expect zeros first in lat/lon that will change when fix so it would be visible where are they located. Also I could try to replay some sequence via AVR MCU if it will be recognized by cam. Do you think that GPS module only transmit, no receive?

How much often?

Yes I have some problems when contacting a scope gnd crocodile to it...
Hi Rayer, unfortunately I have had to suspend work on the O-GPS1 for the time being as I am into another project which isn't leaving me much time. I will eventually return to this though, unless of course someone else sorts it out before I do. I had done some more work after my last post on the subject. Haven't got far but have collected some traces that might be useful and have attached them to this post. There are some notes embedded in the traces noting what was happening at the time. For instance in one of the traces I turn the camera gradually in the hope of seeing the field containing the heading change correspondingly and then remain constant when I stop turning.

I am thinking the 'fix' messages are actually the long ones, but what the other short ones could be is a bit of a mystery. If I remember correctly it was locked onto a signal but probably in 2D as it was indoors. I'm not sure though as unfortunately I did not note that down. The attached files do have a trace from switch on so it might be visible in that. I would not count on there being zeros in the Lat/lon initially though. The other project I am working on also happens to involve GPS and the module I am using often has either the co-ordinates as they were at last switch off or some odd co-ordinates such as 89.9999 N 89.999 E or something similar, so I guess the O-GPS1 could well have some similar peculiarity.

The protocol is necessarily two way for just one reason - that from the camera you can command the GPS to go into calibration mode. There may also be some configuration commands sent at startup.

The communication protocol seems very similar to I2C in some ways but different in others and is probably some proprietary variant of it. I have not fully understood it yet but the way it switches between transmit and receive mode seems to be almost the same as I2C. The clock is always generated by the camera acting as master.

Regarding the frequency of the longer messages it seems quite random, sometimes they can be as often as once every two seconds whereas at other times it could be 30 seconds between each, while the other shorter messages are almost continuous except when the camera goes into standby.




O-GPS1.rar
04-30-2014, 11:32 AM   #235
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QuoteOriginally posted by lister6520 Quote
Hi Rayer, unfortunately I have had to suspend work on the O-GPS1 for the time being as I am into another project which isn't leaving me much time. I will eventually return to this though, unless of course someone else sorts it out before I do.
Too bad that you have to take a break but it would indeed be great if you could return to this detective work.

Perhaps one day I'll be able to help myself but at the moment I don't even posses an O-GPS1 yet.
05-04-2014, 05:49 AM   #236
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QuoteOriginally posted by HavelockV Quote
Could you explain a little what we should exactly do with raw2tiff? And on what file? I guess we have the have a decrypted firmware first?

By the way, I set up a poll for the camera bodies with ARM processors here:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/258370-poll-what...processor.html
K3 seems the winner
05-06-2014, 10:00 AM   #237
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QuoteOriginally posted by HavelockV Quote
Could you explain a little what we should exactly do with raw2tiff? And on what file? I guess we have the have a decrypted firmware first?
Good luck with raw2tiff on recent firmwares. I was easily able to find everything in the very old firmwares (*ists), but in K10 I could only find fonts... In K30 I could find nothing... My guess is that everything is compressed. The graphics took up a large proportion of the old firmwares, and although the amount of storage has increased, so have the resolutions of the screens... The other possibilities are that they are encrypted, which I feel is unlikely, or use a less easily decoded image system...
05-06-2014, 11:34 PM   #238
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QuoteOriginally posted by Moo Quote
In K30 I could find nothing... My guess is that everything is compressed.
IMHO compression seems reasonable.
It can only be a non-destructive compression. So maybe it's the old GIF format or the newer PNG ?
There must be exist some signature of these formats.
05-09-2014, 04:24 PM - 2 Likes   #239
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I've just finished implementing a loading technique for the K-30. Now after flashing a special firmware you can go to the SW debug menu and load a custom program from the SD card. All changes are then made in memory so it's much safer now.

I'll post some demos in a bit.
05-10-2014, 10:53 AM   #240
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great job! i'm on the mechanical side and very limited knowledge on programming. Really hope your project works!
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