Hardware is certainly harder to integrate. With hardware you have the
software integration issues still (Since you've got to add support to
the firmware for the hardware you've added) plus you need to find space
for the hardware, ensure it doesn't interfere with any other hardware
and ensure it is electrically compatible with the hardware, and this is
something that essentially needs to be done with any fresh design (Even
if the interface specs are identical, like the K mount). I'll pretty
much guarantee that the implementation of the aperture coupling is
different(Although similar) from model-line to model-line. You can't
just drop the hardware from a MZ-6 into an *ist D and call it a day.
Software, especially when it's simply piggybacking on already existent
functionality like the Green-Button solution, is much easier to add as
long as you have sufficient storage and CPU power. The green-button fix
is likely a module or two drawing functions from the DoF code and the
pre-existing Green-button code to make it stop-down meter then set Tv
(the latter portion of the code already existed as part of the Green
Button functionality in M mode with fully-supported lenses)
And testing is a whole othe rball of wax.
Adding this capability to a design that lacks it is not nearly as simple
as you seem to think. And the DSLR's are built off a platform that
lacked this capability to begin with (The *ist, which shares most of its
mechanicsw ith teh DSLR's, although the frames are substantially different).
-Adam
J. C. O'Connell wrote:
Hardware is harder to integrate? Where do you
come with this crap? Hardware or software
difficulty depends on the task, sometimes
hardware is much easier solution. The firmware
"patch" is a bandaid not a fix.
jco
-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Maas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 9:03 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: more green button wars
While the lenses do exist, the number of owners looking to buy into
Digital or modern film are a fairly small fraction of the current
market. Barely worth supporting, and not worth the extra engineering
required to integrate the extra functionality into the design (Hardware
is always harder to integrate than firmware, hence the firmware fix).
-Adam
