Displaying the firmware version number

Hold down the SET key and turn on the camera, either to REC or PLAY, and your camera's operating system version number is displayed:

       VER 1.002       

If you have an earlier version number, you will need to upgrade the firmware if you want to use the newer Microdrives from IBM. See my firmware upgrade page for details.

To enter the test mode function

Hold down the MENU and DISP (for the QV3000-EX) or the MENU and SHIFT keys (for the QV3500-EX) and turn the camera on to either REC or PLAY, and you'll get something like this:

• 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.

To enter the internal test menus

The menus below were designed to be used by Casio techs to test the camera's circuitry and functions. Warning - they could stuff up your camera by resetting camera settings or initialising the camera's ROM i.e. ERASING the on-board operating system and factory settings. If you use them, you do so at your own risk, especially those that have no comment beside them.

You have to already be in the TEST MODE to open these menus - hold down the MENU and DISP keys and turn the camera on to either REC or PLAY.

• To open MENU1 - press PREVIEW > PREVIEW > MENU
• To open MENU2 - press FLASH > FLASH > MENU
• To open MENU3 - Press TIMER > TIMER > MENU
• If they don't seem to work, then try entering the key sequences faster.
• To navigate - use +/– switch to select an item, MENU to return to the TEST MODE menu.
• Press the shutter to open a selection, BUT BE WARNED, YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK

MENU1

Press PREVIEW > PREVIEW > MENU.

1. INIT. NTSC JAPANESE - initialise the camera to factory default settings for NTSC Japanese
2. LED + SUBLCD
3. INIT.NTSC ENGLISH - initialise the camera to factory default settings for NTSC English (e.g. U.S.)
4. CROSS HATCH
5. ANG DET CHECK
6. INIT.PAL ENGLISH - initialise the camera to factory default settings for PAL English (e.g. E.U., UK, Aus, etc)
7. COLOR BAR - used to adjust & check color, tint
8. 50PERCENT GRAY - used to test the output of the photo sensor amplifier

MENU2

Don't use this adjustment menu. Normally these values are matched to each particular lens assembly at the factory and are loaded using special software. If you try to adjust them yourself your light levels, etc., may not work properly anymore! Press FLASH > FLASH > MENU

1. CCD ADJ ALL - adjusts all the CCD settings below - do not use, you will ERASE all the CCD's default adjustments designed to work with your camera's lens assembly - to fix means a new lens assembly!
2. ZOOM ADJUST - ??
3. CCD1 (AWB AGC) - press SET to reset Automatic White Balance level, prob needs 18% grey card properly lit to reset, press SET again to adjust Automatic Gain Control, used for the colour levels. AGC + RGAIN (red) + BGAIN (blue) should equal some checksum value, if not you get EEP WR NG and CCD1 will show up as NG ("Not Good"?) in the TEST MODE screen and you'll need to get your entire lens assembly replaced to fix it because these settings are calibrated to each individual lens at the factory - trust me, I know from bitter experience :(
4. CCD2 (APERTURE) - ??
5. CCD3 (SHUTTER) - ??
6. KIZU - ??
7. IRDA MASTER - ??
8. FOCUS ADJUST - ??
9. STROBE ADJUST - flash adjustment after repair, when STROBE indicator appears on the right upper corner, turn the light off then press the shutter in a dark room, distance between flash lens and gray paper (size 1.5m x 2.0m) should be 1 meter. Flash will fire 4 times.

MENU3 1/3

Press TIMER > TIMER > MENU

1. DISPLAY LENS ADJ - this data is linked to the lens at manufacturing and is loaded onto the camera during calibration with a special program
2. REC INFO - start TESTMODE in REC mode then you will be put into REC mode with all sorts of interesting info like the focus distance indicated in millimetres! I've made a separate page for this option to help investigate the meaning of all the information.
3. BATT.TEST
4. PROG+GMENU UPDATE
5. PROG UPDATE
6. GMENU UPDATE
7. CHECK SUM - runs a check sum on ROM.BIN and GMENU.BIN returning 'ROM 58186583 OK' and 'GMENU 170489569 OK' on ver 1.003 firmware
8. OSD DATA CHECK - shows 11 pages of embedded characters used to create all the symbols for the menus from 000-5FF
9. ERROR MESSAGE CHECK
10. SDRAM CHECK
    

MENU3 2/3

11. KEY CHECK
12. LED CHECK - checks the operation of the LEDs, press SHUTTER key to cycle through
13. CF CHECK - checks the operation of the CF (don't know if this test the CF itself or just the circuits that deal with it, probably the latter), returns CF CHECK OK
14. SUB LCD CHECK
15. CF WRITE TEST
16. AF DATA SAVE
17. EEPROM TEST - returns EEPROM CHECK OK
18. ADJ CLEAR
19. NOISE CAPTURE
20. BAYER CAPTURE - This only works if TEST MODE is entered by switching the camera on in REC mode (not PLAY mode).
    Once selected, switches to REC mode and, when next picture taken, creates an un-compressed version as a B&W binary dump from the CCD called NOCOMP.BAY (overwriting any previous file of the same name) of resolution 2080x1547, one byte (8 bits) per pixel (8BPP) making a file of 3,217,760 bytes.

MENU3 3/3

21. SHUTTER CLOSE REC
22. SHUTTER SPEED CONST
23. GRAY SCALE(10STEP) - used to adjust & check the RGB AMP, sub bright, contrast, brightness
24. WHITE
25. BLACK
26. IRDA SLAVE
27. IRDA FACTORY SLAVE

*Disclaimer*
First off, I take no responsibility for any damage to self, camera, data, or property that might occur as a result of this thread.... I'm saying this because I just killed my lovely Z3 by finding out this information. I did so by doing a "SYSTEM INITIALIZE" in the "ROM UPDATE" section of the 'TEST MODE'. All I get when I turn my camera now is "SYSTEM ERROR". So please, read through the test mode carefully.

Lets start with the easy stuff:

How to Check Your Firmware version info

In either play or rec mode, hold down "MENU" and turn on camera. This will be displayed for approximately 5 seconds:

===========================
         VER 1.00 


=========================== 

How to access Test Mode

Now for the good stuff:
Turn on the camera while simultaneously holding down "MENU" and "DISP".
This will be displayed until any of the following buttons are pressed [FULL SHUTTER, SET, MENU, ON/OFF], at which point it will return to whatever mode it is set for.

===========================
    ++ KX855 ++ 

PR:03.02.28.09.45 
LD:2.00 
MI:94 
=========================== 

KX855 is probably Casio's internal model number. PR = software build date & time in yy.mm.dd.hh.mm format.

How to access the testing menus

Now for the REALLY good stuff... if you press RIGHT-->RIGHT-->MENU while at the previous screen it takes you into the TEST MODE menus!!!

TEST MODE

1. VERSION INFO
2. VIDEO OUT
3. USB TCC TEST
4. TEST MENU
5. BEEP TEST
6. TASK-2 TEST
7. ROM UPDATE
8. ADJ TEST
9. REC- INFO
10. TEST SCRIPT
11. LAST MEMORY

What follows is a breakdown or "tree/folder" view of the entire system:

1. VERSION INFO

      =====================
      KX855 Version       
      
      Firm:         
       03.02.28.09.45         
       1.00       
       
      Micon:         
       94       
      
      Loader:         
       02.05.26.00.42         
       2.00     
     ===================== 

2. VIDEO OUT
1. VIDEO OUT ON
2. VIDEO OUT OFF
3. USB TCC TEST
1. USB TCC ON
2. USB TCC OFF
3. USB STORAGE

         ================             
           USB STORAGE                  
            USER MODE           
         ================ 

4. TEST MENU
1. KEY CHECK
   [shows buttons being pressed]
2. VCOM CHECK
3. MEMORY CHECK
1. DRAM MEMORY
2. CARD FILE
3. FLASH-U FILE
4. FLASH-S FILE
5. COLOR CHECK
1. COLOR BAR1
2. COLOR BAR2
3. CROSS HATCH
4. GRAY SCALE
5. WHITE
6. UGAIN CHECK
7. VGAIN CHECK
8. MESSAGE CHECK
1. BIT-MAP
2. FONT1 (16*16)
3. FONT2 (14*25)
4. ERR-MESSAGE
9. LED CHECK
1. STROBE
2. AF
3. SELF
4. AFSUB
5. USB
6. POWER GREEN
7. POWER RED

   [OFF ON]

10. SW&JACK CHECK
    [shows active connections to the camera]
11. MIC CHECK
1. START
2. STOP
12. C-FPC
5. BEEP TEST
1. BEEP1
2. BEEP2
3. BEEP3
4. BEEP4
5. BEEP5
6. BEEP6
7. BEEP7
8. BEEP8
9. BEEP9
10. BEEP10
11. BEEP11
12. BEEP12
13. BEEP13
6. TASK-2 TEST
1. TASK1=--
2. TASK2=0
3. TASK3=--
4. TASK4=--
5. TASK5=--
6. TASK6=--
7. TASK7=--
8. TASK8=--
7. ROM UPDATE
   WARNING - ANY SELECTIONS IN THIS SECTION MAY IRREPARABLY DAMAGE YOUR CAMERA - PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK
1. FLASH INITITIAL

    ==================
     FLASH INITIALIZE
       START...
     PUSH OK KEY?
    ==================

2. MICON WDT ON
   [apparently setting this 'on' automatically brings you into test mode on startup]
3. MICON UPDATE
4. SH TW UPDATE
5. SYSTEM INITIALIZE [do NOT do this, it will kill your camera!!!]
6. MENU CHECKSUM
8. ADJ TEST
1. VCOM ca
2. SHUT ????
3. AWB ????
4. IRIS ????
5. STROBE ????
6. KIZU ????
7. FOCUS ????
8. ZOFFSETUNUSE
9. SDIST ????
10. POWER1????
11. POWER2????
12. ADJ STATUS CLR

         ===================                
           ADJ DATA CLEAR?                     
             START                
           PUSH OK KEY?                      
             STOP                
           PUSH PW KEY?           
         =================== 

9. REC- INFO

      ==================            
        REC INFO TEST                
           START...                
        PUSH OK KEY?          
      ================== 

10. TEST SCRIPT

       ==================             
          TEST MODE SCRIPT                    
             START...                  
          PUSH OK KEY?          
       ================== 

11. LAST MEMORY

   ===================            
      LAST MEMORY CLEAR                      
         START...                 
      PUSH OK KEY?           
   =================== 

I spent quite a bit of time mucking around in there. If anybody finds anything cool, post it! I would steer clear of ANYTHING in the "ROM UPDATE" section (section 7), and sections 10 and 11. Unfortunately, I didn't see any settings for contrast, saturation, aperture, shutter, etc... The closest thing is probably section 8 "ADJ TEST". Something interesting to see is the "Rec Info Test" (section 9). Have fun guys!

To enter the test mode function

1. Power off camera
2. While pressing MENU and DISP buttons simultaneously, turn the camera on. It should display black and white info screen.
3. Release all buttons.
4. Press Right (>)on the joystick TWO or more times.
5. Press MENU button.

This 12-point menu will appear:

1. VERSION INFO
2. VIDEO OUT
3. USB_TCC_TEST
4. TEST MENU
5. SOUND TEST
6. IMAGE FLAG (here is where the raw mode can be turned on)
7. ROM UPDATE - WARNING - DON'T USE THIS!! - WILL WRECK YOUR CAMERA!!
8. ADJ TEST - WARNING - DON'T USE THIS!! - WILL WRECK YOUR CAMERA!!
9. REC-INFO - enter the service menu in record mode, then this option will show more details when taking a photo
10. TEST SCRIPT
11. LAST MEMORY
12. FORMAT

There are 2 options in the IMAGE FLAG menu:

1. BAYER MODE (on, off) - this records raw files
2. C. M. READ (on, off) - ??

Notes:

• When BAYER MODE is on, camera captures a full-size raw image in addition to whatever image format (TIF, JPG) you have set.
• The camera stores raw images in the same folder as JPEGs and gives unique file names which are derived from corresponding JPEG files, like this: CIMG0075.JPG --> 0075CIMG.RAW.
• RAW mode has to be enabled through service menu each time you power on the camera.