The purpose of this is to document some of the things that the firmware upgrade addresses by looking at text strings inside the firmware upgrade file.
'Hidden' test mode key combination
This gives some further info about all the firmware on the camera. Hold down the MENU and DISP keys (for the QV3000-EX, QV4000 and QV5700) or the MENU and SHIFT keys (for the QV3500-EX) and turn the camera on to either REC or PLAY. This is easiest performed if you use your left and right thumbs on the MENU and DISP keys and your right index finger to turn on the camera. Here's what you could see for VER 1.002:
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Where it says PROG is probably the original creation date and time of firmware version 1.002 in 'yy.dd.mm.hh.mm' format - 3:03pm, 16th May 2000.
A user with VER1.000 of the software reported 'PROG 00.02.24.17.40' - 5:40pm 24th Feb 2000.
UPDATE 5-Feb-2001 Another user with VER1.000 reported 'PROG 00.02.15.17.29' - 5:29pm 15th Feb 2000, so it seems as if there were at least 2 builds of 1.000.
With VER1.001, the startup test readings are: 'PROG 00.03.24.15.38' - 3:38pm 24th March 2000.
UPDATE 21-Mar-2001 VER1.003 reports : 'PROG 01.01.11.12.11' - 12:11pm 11th Jan 2001.
GMENU, the graphical menu program, has a creation date of 6:12PM, 27th Dec 1999. |
Operating system
It seems the QV-3000EX uses a pSOS+™ operating system running on an ARM processor (see below). Here's some links concerning pSOS+™, an OS for embedded systems:
Here is a list of some strings inside the file QV3000EX.BIN:
Invalid IP address
SDRAM CHECK
CF CHECK
EEPROM CHECK
LOADER CHECK
FOUND OLD LOADER
LOADER UPDATE
Set speed to ...2400....9600....19200...38400...57600...115200
..576000..1.15M...4M..unknown. baud
EEP READ ERR
KIZUDETECT
ROM.BIN
GMENU.BIN
QV3000EX.BIN
FILE CORRUPTED
QV-Link Connect!
Quit from mp_comm
60K compress
Make 60K-VGA JPEG err
120K compress
Make 120K-VGA JPEG err
Make VGA
Make SXGA
UXGA 422 to 411
Sonomama shutsuryoku 1
pSOS+/ARM V2.10
COPYRIGHT 1995, INTEGRATED SYSTEMS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
System Initialization Failed: insufficient memory available!
CASIO QV SERIES
CASIO QV-2000UX/Ir
VPP range error
Invalid partition table.
Error loading operating system.
Missing operating system.
MSDOS5.0
SANVOL
QV-3000EX Dir Information File Ver 1.0
QV-3000EX Page Information File Ver 1.0
I.B.M...M.i.c.r.o.d.r.i.v.e.
QV-2000UX
ROM99040201,ADJ99040201
1999:12:22 12:00:00
Love that reference to MSDOS5.0!!
UPDATE 16-Jan-2002 Igor Nesterov writes: "MSDOS5 reference inside CASIO QV-3000EX ROM has very simple explanation: MBR and boot sector image for CF format procedure. Boot sector layout contains OEM NAME field, where MSDOS5 located."
It also looks as if some camera software other than QV3000EX.BIN may be flashable as the file also contains references to ROM.BIN and GMENU.BIN.
1 - sonomama means 'in a natural state', shutsuryoku 'output'. So is 'sonomama shutsuryoku' a reference to some sort of a raw, uncompressed format??
Thanks go out to:
All at the
Digital Photograpy Review Casio Talk Forum