Porting CHDK to new cameras
posted May 27th 2008 11:30pm by Eliotfiled under: digital cameras hacks
While researching the CHDK How-To, we came across the team’s instructions for porting the firmware to entirely new cameras. In theory, CHDK should work on any Canon running the DIGIC II or III processor since most of them are running the same VxWorks OS. A dump of the camera’s firmware is required before porting work can begin. On some cameras, the firmware was retrieved using software, but others required a hardware route. Pictured above is a Canon A610 that’s slowly flashing out every bit of its firmware using the built in LED. The photodiode is hooked up to a soundcard where the entire bitstream is recorded. It takes 1-7 hours to read the entire firmware. Once the sound file has been captured, it’s reverted to the original bytes and can then be decompiled with something like IDApro.
Canon 40D? The firmware images are freely downloadable online (assuming it’s the right format). I’d love to be able to do time lapse without hooking it up to a PC (or maybe it does this? heh, i haven’t actually looked).
-Taylor