Re: Microneye software, where?

["Charlie" <charlieDOTd@verEYEzon.net>]

"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message 
news:9980d$492a52fd$29937@news.teranews.com...
> Charlie wrote:
>> <zzjoki@gmail.com> wrote in message 
>> ad98bdc8-a8ab-4434-b831-64a992cc4633@a37g2000pre.googlegroups.com">news:ad98bdc8-a8ab-4434-b831-64a992cc4633@a37g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
>> On Nov 14, 6:11 pm, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Toinet wrote:
>>>
>>>>Dear All,
>>>
>>>>I own a Microneye camera but I lack its software. I would like to know
>>>>whether some of you could provide me with a link to download it.
>>>
>>>>A search among the archive of csa2 brought me to several threads and
>>>>links but all return in error.
>>>
>>>>I thank you in advance for your help.
>>>
>>>Wasn't that the de-capped DRAM chip adapted for use as a camera
>>>(from back when CCDs were very expensive)?
>>>
>>>Circuit Cellar (Byte Magazine) ran an article on it, IIRC, but
>>>the principle should be:
>>>
>>>1. Write all 1's (or all 0's) to the DRAM,
>>>2. Wait for the desired exposure time,
>>>3. Read back the DRAM--any differences are proportional
>>>to the received illumination.
>>>
>>>The relationship between address and the image geometry
>>>will need to be determined empirically.
>>>
>>>-michael
>>>
>>>******** Note new website URL ********
>>>
>>>NadaNet and AppleCrate II for Apple II parallel computing!
>>>Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/
>>>
>>>"The wastebasket is our most important design
>>>tool--and it's seriously underused."
>>
>>
>> | Yep, it's a de-capped RAM chip. Wouldn't there be a threshold per bit
>> | - no "proportional"? Or maybe you could scan at different exposure
>> | times to assemble a gray scale image.
>
> This would be the natural way to proceed with a 1-bit threshold, but
> it would take 2^n-1 exposures to get n bits, so anything beyond crude
> grayscale would take a while.
>
> On the other hand, making multiple exposures and examining the
> average number of 0's and 1's would allow for pretty good "automatic
> exposure" adjustment by the software.
>
>> | Does anyone know if capped non-Micron RAM chips also be used this way?
>> | (I've got a box of "iffy" capped RAM chips)
>>
>> If I recall correctly, in the Circuit Cellar article a Micron RAM chip 
>> was used because it was the only one that Steve found that had the memory 
>> cells laid out in a regular order 2 sets of 256 x 128 (Steve only used 
>> one). Other chips at the time had the cells in different orders such that 
>> the position in the chip didn't correspond with the memory address.  That 
>> would have required a more complex program to put the pixels in the 
>> correct order.
>
> True, and I can see how a "wirehead" like Steve Ciarcia would have
> though that was a big deal.  But Apple II programmers know that *any*
> permutation of bits in pixel addressing is a small matter of software
> or tables.  ;-)  It would be almost as easy to use *any* DRAM in this
> way.
>
> -michael

Yes, I think you are right.  I asked Steve Ciarcia about the use of other 
RAM chips shortly after his Circuit Cellar article appeared in Byte 
Magazine.  At the time I had grandiose ideas of using several chips with 
filters to make a color version of the camera but could not find a source 
for the Micron chips at anywhere near the price of other makes.  We had a 
long conversation on the subject but unfortunately my memory is not what it 
used to be so I can't tell you any specifics.  I did however come away with 
the impression that he thought it was too much trouble to use other chips. 
By trouble I believe he meant not just the program to use the other chips 
but also to determine where each cell was initially.  I believe he said that 
each manufacture used a different pattern of cells some of which were very 
illogical (at least when using the chip as an image sensor).
I however, being more into software than hardware, thought that both 
problems could be solved easily with software.
I also thought it would be possible to use both sets of memory cells in the 
Micron chip.  Steve didn't use both because there would be a 'dead zone' 
between the two sets.  I figured that you could split the beam with prisms 
or mirrors and merge the two images programmatically.
Alas, my ideas got put on the back burner at the time and I never got back 
to them.

Charlie