Say hello to my little M510!

Say hello to my little M510!
Yes, I bought it, so I'm going to post high-res shots of this new camera - inside and out. Until then, here's a video I shot at CVS. Good news: It's visibly very different from the older PV2 cameras. You won't buy one by accident. Very easy to open battery latch. Spring loaded flap (like the M225 camcorder) over the "puredigital processing" connector instead of a cheap sticker. Bad news: The screen appears to be DSTN (it refreshes horribly slow and has the nasty "grainy rainbow" associated with cheap DSTN screens. It's also visibly lower resolution. Plugged it into my palm cable - nothing. No driver pop-up, no nothing. It's like it's not there. The camera does power on when plugged into USB, however. No more SMAL. I've already opened the thing up, it's a totally different design. Nerve Pinch Displayes: INFO FIRMWARE 0202 ID HA4061704373 REALM ID 20

Nice find, I wonder how long it is going to take to get into one of those.

Beans! Lots of them! I know what store I'm going to on my lunch hour tomorrow! Any word on the resolution on the packaging? If it's 1.3MP I won't bother, and PD shouldn't have bothered either. Wasn't there a insert/cradle replacement that happened at participating CVS locations? I wonder if you now need to apply ground or + other pins. Maybe they even have some "pin knocking" sequence that needs to be ran before the cam begins to respond at all. I'll now go out on a limb and predict that this new cam doesn't have a bootloader mode.

Beans! Lots of them! Any word on the resolution on the packaging? If it's 1.3MP I won't bother, and PD shouldn't have bothered either. It's hard to tell from the low resolution of the Saturn, but the only packaging change is the plastic "blister" was changed to accomidate the pointless protrusion (it's purely aesthetic) underneath the lense area. The packaging still incorrectly states that you can only view/delete your most previous shot. This new camera continues the legacy of the the view/delete all features that firmware 6600 introduced. Wasn't there a insert/cradle replacement that happened at participating CVS locations? I wonder if you now need to apply ground or + other pins. Maybe they even have some "pin knocking" sequence that needs to be ran before the cam begins to respond at all. Well, when plugged into USB, it powers up even without batteries - so I'm assuming they may have changed the data connections. I'm gonna take some photos tonight with my Canon Digital Rebel, and maybe tomorrow see if I can figure out why it won't talk over USB. If anyone else is interested in one of these things, there were a few more on the shelves. I'll now go out on a limb and predict that this new cam doesn't have a bootloader mode. It's an entirely new design, so it's all guesswork at this point. I really dislike the new LCD, I certainly hope it doesn't find its way into the Saturns. :evil:

My Rebel wasn't feeling very rebellious, a battery that requires charging ruined my late-night picture taking idea. So for now, I'll post some crappy cell phone pics and I'll take the high-res shots after work.

Those ridges around the lens are reminiscent of the original OTU dakota cam. But WTF is that ugly bump underneath the lens? :P

Those ridges around the lens are reminiscent of the original OTU dakota cam. But WTF is that ugly bump underneath the lens? :P An auto focus motor?

I stripped the camera down to the bare board, since I figured the more detail, the better. A fair warning - both the LCD and lense assembly (yes, there's 3 screws on the lense assembly, but don't be fooled) are held on with very strong double-sided adhesive tape. I accidentially broke the LCD in the process of removing it AND I broke the shutter while pulling off the lense assembly (I was overdue for taking one for the team, anyway). The solder on the edge connector is from my (trial and nothing but error) attempts to see if any of the original unused pins were now the USB connection. At any rate, here's what everyone's been waiting for:

And the full resolution pictures, right out of my Canon DSLR (warning, large files!): front back top

I wonder what can be done with all those -*test*-('") points? There are so many of them.

GotAnMP3 did they (PD) scratch off the full numbers on the ASIC (U2) or did you do that? if the ASIC's not from smal now, does it mean no autobrite anymore? wow even the flash tube looks cheaper

GotAnMP3 did they (PD) scratch off the full numbers on the ASIC (U2) or did you do that? if the ASIC's not from smal now, does it mean no autobrite anymore? They stuck the stupid beeper to that chip and the glue got all up in the laser engraving. The camera had trouble photographing it, but here's what I can make out visually: PDT-101-RD2100 EC227550G-1L-E QF3229.1 0542 Taiwan No more SMAL, no more autobrite. Probably no more bootloader mode, either.

Nice job GotAnMP3! Here's what I've dug up on the other chips... ic42s16100 Manufacturer: ICSI Type: SDRAM (16 Mb) http://www.ortodoxism.ro/datasheets2/c/0huz9ff470rj4j1722ath8gqp9wy.pdf k9f5608u0d Manufacturer: Samsung Type: NAND Flash (256Mb, 8-Bit, 2.7V-3.6V, Page Size=512+16) http://www.samsung.com/products/semiconductor/NANDFlash/SLC_SmallBlock/256Mbit/K9F5608U0D/K9F5608U0D.htm Note that memory sizes listed are in Mb, NOT MB. The page size is standard, so it looks like a SmartMedia/XD reader hack would do the job!

GotAnMP3 did they (PD) scratch off the full numbers on the ASIC (U2) or did you do that? if the ASIC's not from smal now, does it mean no autobrite anymore? No more SMAL, no more autobrite. Probably no more bootloader mode, either. that sucks. so you actually tried to photograph a scene where autobrite is needed, and it doesn't photograph as well as the old ones known to have autobrite? i'm wondering if the autobrite is now in the processing stage when CVS gets the camera.

... PDT-101-RD2100 EC227550G-1L-E QF3229.1 0542 Taiwan I can't find anything on google, but I'm not totally surprised. No doubt PDT=Pure Digital Technologies. 2MB SDRAM is pretty pitiful. I can't see any alternative to concluding it's another ~1 MP camera. Can anybody else?

so you actually tried to photograph a scene where autobrite is needed, and it doesn't photograph as well as the old ones known to have autobrite? i'm wondering if the autobrite is now in the processing stage when CVS gets the camera. Actually, it's really hard to tell because the new LCD is so amazingly crappy. And mine's amazingly broken now. While I can just buy another one (there's tons of them at every CVS I went to today, it's like a plague!), I think I'm going to have to turn over the real hacking to someone who's got more experience in starting over from scratch. It looks as if the original USB data pads aren't even connected anymore (I didn't see any vias). For all I know, there might be some actual hardware in the new camera dock that's required for communication with this thing.

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