Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Hi everyone.
I love the new community that has been formed over here
Some of you might recognize me from NikonWeb since i'm (i guess) the last active poster of the site with my project of bringing back to life a really beaten Kodak DCS100 missing it's DSU.
Here's the original thread on NW NikonWeb Thread
Summarizing a little bit, the DCS project advanced a lot, it's already taking pictures with the assistance of a PC which gives some results but are far from ideal.
Any questions, help or ideas are welcomed, feel free to talk me over here or NikonWeb and i'll be happy to chat about it.

This is the last picture i took with it with a Nikkor ED 180mm f2.8

Here are some other (older) shots:

And the beast itself:

And for the tech enthusiasts.
The camera right now is controlled by an Altera Cyclone IV, it handles the task of talking to the Altera EP910 EPLD inside the winder that converts 8bit commands (via 8 pins on the 15 pin connector in the winder) into actions to perform. (button pressing on the F3, shutter winding, setting the CCD preamp, etc.), there is a signal called Latch Data that handles the direction of the port and that is how achieves bidirectional communication to the DSU.
The back of the DCS contains all the analog electronics to drive the CCD and deliver an analog video signal to the winder that contains an 8bit ADC.
Whenever the ADC is on, the CCD clock is running (called HGATE in this design) and the Latch data is in direction to the DSU the EPLD inside the winder engages another latch and the ADC output is visible on the same 8 pins that receives the commands so the DSU can sample that and buffer it and finally save it to disk.

At the moment my design handles all that except the buffering and saving part. I have 8 dedicated pins on the FPGA board to act as my read port, while developing this was essential to fine tune all the timings and now it serves the purpose of only deliver pixel information to be read with a logic analyzer connected to a PC.

The next step is to capture that and save it to a file, sounds simple but is not that simple, the ADC spits data at a steady rate of 6Mhz, which is too fast for simple microcontrollers like an Arduino uno and the frame size is also quite big, 1.3M Bytes, which is far more than what most microcontrollers can buffer, so a little bit of RAM is needed.

My available options are not much because i'm in Argentina and you cannot buy things overseas, you can only get the basic stuff.
So, it's an Arduino with atmega328, an ESP32, the most basic STM32 and maybe a Raspberry pico.
On another forum I got the suggestion of using PSRAM that now comes in a fancy QSPI protocol that can work up to 144mhz, thats faster than what my FPGA can work and like 20 faster than I need, then again, I cannot buy that unless I got an ESP32-CAM which comes bundled with a 4MB PSRAM and that's what I did.

I now have an ESP32 with PSRAM that has a port to connect some models of cameras that are actually 8 bits with PCLK (same output as the ADC on the DCS) but they work with their own library and talk via I2C to set the sensor settings, if that i2c signal is not there, the library fails so I can't use that.

Coding the library from scratch exceeds my knowledge on coding so I though on connecting the QSPI bus of the PSRAM to the FPGA so it handles the buffering part directly and the the ESP32 uses that same bus to read back from the PSRAM and dumps that to a file on a SD card.

I'm still making decisions at this point so I'm reaching the community for ideas and of course if anyone wants to help with the code is more than welcomed.

Thanks everyone and I hope we talk a lot about these unique pieces of hardware.

Hi! pieroc91

I am royally impressed with your project, but I don't understand it at all 😀 I just wish I had a tenth of your capacity.
I went to see and read your adventure on NikonWeb.com And I will continue to follow your adventure here.

For my part, I have been a passionate collector of digital cameras since 1996. With no technical skills 😂
And one of my pleasures is to make them work. And I get there most of the time.

I have several Kodak DCS, 16 exactly and everything works, including the Kodak DCS 100

You can see here if you want several comparisons that I have made over the past 5 years.

Kodak DCS and more...
www.flickr.com/photos/maoby/albums/page2

Photos of early digital cameras in 1991 ...
www.flickr.com/photos/maoby/albums/72157714467682007

Here is some of my equipment
www.flickr.com/photos/maoby/albums/72157670964460794

I have been posting for several years on DPREVIEW / Kodak SLR Talk
But I was just banned by a neurotic moderator for a period of 7 days. :)
But I'll be back here soon!
I just wonder if it is better to have only one forum or two like on DPREVIEW "Kodak Talk" and "Kodak SLR Talk"

Congratulations again 👍🏻

Hi @Maoby so nice to have you here, i've seen your pictures while researching on how the DCS100 pictures should look like but haven't seen the comparisons you made (now I want a DCS 760) and you already solved me a doubt I had about the color response of the DCS, I was afraid that my DCS sensor had the pigments deteriorated due to heavy usage but I see some similar results on your pictures and I guess that's the personality it has.
It's so good you are very committed to preserve this part of history, this cameras shaped the way social media exists right now and how that actually shaped the society we live in.
If you need help with any technical stuff bringing back to life something don't hesitate in contacting me, I'm all in on preserving these devices.

BTW, since you have a working unit, do you mind sending me an actual file from it in order to replicate it as faithful as possible on my homemade DSU?
Does it output any kind of RAW?

Oh and I wasn't a user of DPReview, just a long time lurker and now I've decided to became one just when is saying goodbye. I found amusing this new community and its freedom from the decisions of a soulless corporation like amazon.

I guess only one forum is fine, there's not that much talk about Kodak nowadays, sadly.

Anyway, thanks for passing by and the good vibes!

Thank you for your offer, you never know.

It is the file (CameraArchive) that interests you?
Because with the Kodak DCS 100 and DCS 200, this results in a global file. (Cam Archive)
Which must be extracted with Kodak Digital Storage unit for DCS100 and we export either in Tiff or JPG, afterward.
And for the Kodak DCS 200, it is with “Kodak DCS 200¨ (see the pictures) with plugins for Adobe Photoshop 6.00

Kodak DCS 100 & PowerBook G3 by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

Kodak DCS 100 & PowerBook G3 by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

Kodak DCS 200 & PowerBook G3 by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

If you want I can send you with Dropbox
Two three Files "CameraArchine"
I can also send you Mac & PC software for the two Kodak DCS
And also the PDF Manual for the DCS100 and DCS200

You also have the possibility to download the photos from the Kodak DCS album on Flickr, of my 16 Kodak DCS

Kodak DCS
www.flickr.com/photos/maoby/albums/72157633171596653

Ooh very interesting, yes, a CameraArchive would be ideal, something that had no processing at all, if you can send me a sample that would be great.
My gmail is the same as my username.
I'm curious, did you make some repairs to your DCS? I needed to replace all of my tantalum capacitors because they went short

I will send you the total, more is better than not enough :)

No, my copy was in very good condition when I bought it on ebay for $530 US in 2006
And I had separately found my storage unit (DSU) in 2004 still on ebay and I paid only 0.01¢
but $30 for delivery :)

That's awesome, i'm already tinkering with the file, it's amazing, it has no header whatsoever, is just pure raw data from the sensor plus a small thumbnail.
I can see i have a long way till i get a file like that, for some reason my black level is way too high, at first i though it was just like that, on the DCS History PDF says the DCS100 is just 6bits, i tried to fit my bad black level to some compensation for those 2 missing bits, but on your file i can see the whole 8 bits are used.
I wonder if prior to save it makes some kind of math to remove the dark current and noise, i gotta give a deeper read to the source code.

I'm surprised of how clean the reading is, it's very low noise.

Just for fun, give it a look on Pixel Viewer by Carina Studios.

Set it as:
Starting Data Offset: 38911
Padding Between Frames: 65536
Format : Bayer Pattern (16 bits)
Byte Ordering: Little Endian
Bayer Pattern: RGGB (2x2)
Dimensions: 1280x1024
Row Stride: 1280
Pixel Stride: 1

It looks a little bit artifacty because of the demosaicing filter not being that good but for research purposes it goes well.

$530 for a clean DCS is a really nice price, i've seen them go for $1500 in ugly shape, not to even mention a DSU for $30, thats a steal, i wish i could find something like that to complete my DCS... well not really because i cannot get it shipped to Argentina but anyway.

I'm happy for you, hope it helps 👍🏻

PS
I don't understand, why you can't "I cannot get it shipped to Argentina" !?
If it is not too indiscreet

Yes of course it helps, i'll be using it to make a header so the camera can generate DNG files, also, that header can be added to the CameraArchive files so they can be processed by newer versions of CameraRaw while remaining as a pure RAW.

And Argentina is a wild place, is as corrupt as it can be, and customs is a complete mafia, if you actively import stuff you bribe your own custom agent and you go like a regular country, as a casual individual your package never passes the custom control unless you pay an absurd fee (a few days ago a friend had to pay 500dls in custom fee for a 300dls device) also you cannot directly buy in foreign currency, the bank makes you pay in pesos and the rate is also a complete nonsense, if you ask the government each dollar (today) costs you 216 pesos, but you cannot buy them, you have to get them on the street like if you were buying something instead of currency, and that costs you 395 pesos for each dollar, and lastly, if you buy with a credit card on a foreign country you have to pay 432 pesos for each dollar, according to the government you actually pay with the 216 rate, and the bank receives only 216 pesos, the other 216 pesos are taxes and the government swallows it.
Knowing all this problems most postal services won't ship to argentina to avoid troubles, and the ones they do cost a fortune, in the end you pay multiple times the cost of what you bought and there's still the chance you package gets stuck in customs. I'd feel bad if one DSU goes to the scrap because customs decided to keep it, rather leave it there so at least there's a chance of it getting to someone who at least appreciate it.

Well, adding the header and beign able to open the file on photoshop as monochrome to analyze it a little bit thickens a lot the plot on the color of this camera.
More specifically what on earth CFA is this?

That looks like 3 luminance pixels (or maybe green?) and one color channel, on the next line is the same but the color channel changes. Can that be YUV?

This is the 3G RGB pattern I mentioned on NikonWeb. patents.google.com/patent/US5374956A/en

Thank you very much for your reply, I will appreciate Canada Post more from now on. 😎

I knew i was posting in the correct place, thanks @SQLGuy!, BTW do you know if it's supported on any software?

Well, in case is not supported by any software photoshoping it with masks and duplicating pixels faking the interpolation is possible to reconstruct color data (color levels are another subject)

This is the 3G RGB pattern I mentioned on NikonWeb. patents.google.com/patent/US5374956A/en
[/quote]

I knew i was posting in the correct place, thanks @SQLGuy!, BTW do you know if it's supported on any software?
[/quote]

DCRaw doesn't support it, neither do UFRaw or libraw. Most newer things take their cue from DCRaw for older support. The DCS100 and early prototypes seem like the only cameras that used 3G RGB. Kodak Photo Desk didn't support it, either, so I'm guessing the only Kodak support would have been through a TWAIN driver. Best bet is probably seeing about adding your own demosaicing algorithm in RawTherapee or DarkTable, or their underlying raw libraries, as appropriate.

If you can translate it into .DCR then you should be able to create a color checker profile for the levels.

By the way... looking at the highlights on the wheels, it does look like you're getting blue data there...

I knew i was posting in the correct place, thanks @SQLGuy!, BTW do you know if it's supported on any software?
[/quote]

DCRaw doesn't support it, neither do UFRaw or libraw. Most newer things take their cue from DCRaw for older support. The DCS100 and early prototypes seem like the only cameras that used 3G RGB. Kodak Photo Desk didn't support it, either, so I'm guessing the only Kodak support would have been through a TWAIN driver. Best bet is probably seeing about adding your own demosaicing algorithm in RawTherapee or DarkTable, or their underlying raw libraries, as appropriate.

If you can translate it into .DCR then you should be able to create a color checker profile for the levels.

By the way... looking at the highlights on the wheels, it does look like you're getting blue data there...
[/quote]

Ugh, more coding... but yeah, I guess that the way to go.
And yes totally, blue data is faint but is totally there, balancing correctly would require quite some fiddle but kicking some sliders i could get blue, also isolating the blue channel i can see it has a whole image.

This are the separated channels only colored and copied to complete the nearest pixels