On Tue, 18 Sep 2001, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> hello all,
>
> i'm trying to reverse engineer the protocol for the polaroid pdc 700 digital
> camera (currently unsupported by gphoto).
>
> i'm using "comlite32" to snoop on the serial port of a windows machine while
> downloading thumbnail images from the camera. it gets the data, and in
> fact i THINK i may have the init string that this camera uses to identify
> itself to windows applications.
>
> the problem is comparing saved buffer files.
>
> * they aren't written as text files, so i can't simply scp them over to a
> linux box and view them.
scp is perfectly happy with binary files.
>
> * there doesn't seem to be an "export to text file" option.
Crappy software. :)
>
> * comlite32 doesn't seem to be able to send its buffer to a printer!
This is windows software? Did you pay for it? If not, did you expect it to
be useful?
>
> * when i try to compare two saved buffer side by side, it crashes windows
> with an "illegal operation" error.
Not sure how you are doing this... with views presented by comlite or via
some other method?
>
> this is exasperating! comlite was written to reverse engineer serial port
> hardware, but how are you supposed to do this when you can't even compare
> saved buffers to look for common strings?
>
> the plan is to write a library that gphoto2 can use to access this camera
> (and i also have the polaroid pdc 2300Z which i'll work on next). but i need
> to understand comlite better, or else get a better tool.
>
> has anyone used this program?
No.
> has anyone used something similar under windows?
No, but I used a program for DOS a few years back that came with a special
serial cable that allowed me to listen in with a third computer. That
program had numerous options for saving files.
You could a) wire to /dev/ttyS0 from the Winbox with a null modem and wire
from /dev/ttyS1 to the camera with the camera cable, and use sersniff
(http://www.earth.li/projectpurple/progs/sersniff.html) or equivalent, or
b) borrow the sniffing cable from me if hardware handshaking is a problem
and record the data streams as they go by. To get synchronization in
option b, you might need to write a program to monitor both serial ports
(or modify sersniff).
Disclaimer: I haven't used sersniff, but it is designed for this problem.
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