On Thu, May 31, 2007 at 12:57:27AM +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
OK, if I had a digital cameera, I'd use it. But
to
be honest, I can't
afford one. YEs, I'd save the cost of film and
processing, but I'd have
to buy the camera, buy a pC, by the equipment to
maintain them, and so
on. That'd buy an awful lot of film.
Some are extremely inexpensive. My only gripe about
But as I poitned out, it's not _just_ the cost of the camera. What do you
suggest I connect it to? Can you get digital cameras that connect to
PERQs or PDP11s?
Tony, why don't you just build yourself a USB host controller that you
can interface to your PERQ or PDP11's? It shouldn't be all that hard to
do, you could even use some common, modern (inexpensive) microcontroller
to do this, I bet, like a PIC.
The protocols are all documented, either by available open source
software, or "real" documentation. There's the issue of not having
schematics for the camera, I guess, but I'm sure you can find people
here that would be willing to send you for free... and when that one
breaks, another for free.
Realistically, though, I've abused the digital cameras I've had, fairly
well, and they've still lasted at least 3 years with basically no
problems [0] until I decided to get a new one[1].
[0] Well, the first one has a problem with its LCD, since it is
basically unprotected, and I was rough with it, but it was still
perfectly usable.
[1] mostly because the improvements in CCD sensors and other technologies
in the cameras make it worthwhile to me, to get a new camera every
3 years.
Pat
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