EEVblog #625 - Retro Teardown: Sony's First Digital Camera

[EEVblog]

Dave tears down Sony's first digital camera that used removable media, a 3.5" floppy drive! The 640x480 resolution 0.3Mpixel 1997 vintage Sony Mavica MVC-FD7

Datasheets:
http://www.alldatasheet.net/datasheet-pdf/pdf/61708/FUJITSU/MB88146AP.html
UPD72069 Floppy-Disk Controller
http://www.ic-on-line.cn/view_download.php?id=1057239&file=0029\upd72069_239054.pdf
AD9801 CCD image sensor processor
http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/48588/AD/AD9801.html
MB90089 OSD: http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets/restul/500457_DS.pdf
SH7032 32 Bit Microcontroller:
http://www.renesas.com/products/mpumcu/superh/sh7030/sh7032/index.jsp
MB3785A Switching Regulator:
http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets2/30/300915_1.pdf

[Chris_PL]

Dave, you should also post those images you've taken with it  I'm curious about the quality of a VGA photo done with proper lens, not those cheap plastic piece-of-shit used in early phone cameras (which happened to be also VGA res) 

[dentaku]

I was going to say the same thing as Chris_PL. It would be nice to see those photos too.
If there's no floppy drives in any of your computers you can probably find one in some of the junk you've collected from the garbage room.

I've used those cameras before too. I know someone who owns two of them.
Back when Ebay started those were great because it made it incredibly easy to quickly get images of the stuff you wanted to sell.

[EEVblog]

Dave, you should also post those images you've taken with it

Will post tomorrow.
The front cover wasn't in place properly though, so not sure how much that affected the image. Compression looked high, maybe a setting for that?

[EEVblog]

If there's no floppy drives in any of your computers you can probably find one in some of the junk you've collected from the garbage room.

Images were included at end of the video. A viewer who works in the same building bought one over when I tweeted I needed one!

[Rasz]

Pictures from teardown already on wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Mavica#mediaviewer/File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Sensor.jpg

Dave are you Binarysequence?
looks like some asshole just appropriated them as his own, didnt even use same License Dave used (CC 2.0).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/Binarysequence
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Binarysequence

plenty of Dave teardown photos uploaded as as if Binarysequence was the owner. Any wikipedia trolls here to explain whats going on?

I fixed few to properly attribute Dave
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Sensor.jpg&action=history
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Lens_Assembly.jpg&action=history

[JoannaK]

The front cover wasn't in place properly though, so not sure how much that affected the image. Compression looked high, maybe a setting for that?

One reason I didn't much like those early floppy based sony cams was the overy cooked processing done inside camera. Those images were highly compressed and way oversharpened . Especially on the later models when the images were bigger so they had to limit the size for floppy limitations.

They made some kinda neat camera designs. These days all those look so much like one another..

[tchicago]

The diagonally mounded mystery part is a piezo shock/acceleration sensor. Here is an example: http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/58860.pdf Chip next to it is an amplifier.

I believe they are mounted at 45 degrees because they want to catch both vertical and horizontal motion. These sensors are also frequently found on the HDD PCBs, also mounted at 45 degrees. Some HDDs even have several of them mounted orthogonally to each other.

[Stonent]

Yeah that JPG quality of "50" in the properties probably had a lot to do with the low quality.

If it has some kind of NVRAM perhaps the previous owner set the picture quality to optimize space on the disk.

[MLXXXp]

At 8m38s Dave says:

Alright, let's take this sucker apart. I'm not sure where to start but I'll just, uh, take off every screw possible...

http://youtu.be/1jPcYCcaHv0?t=8m38s

A tip for all you young players, and also for Dave, apparently:
If a piece of Japanese electronics gear has split arrows pointing to some of the screws, only those screws that the arrows point to need to be removed to open the case, as a first step to servicing.

Both of the first two screws that Dave removed had them. Others that he removed didn't, so could have been left in (but possibly removed later, if necessary, once inside).

[hans]

Pictures from teardown already on wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Mavica#mediaviewer/File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Sensor.jpg

Dave are you Binarysequence?
looks like some asshole just appropriated them as his own, didnt even use same License Dave used (CC 2.0).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/Binarysequence
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Binarysequence

plenty of Dave teardown photos uploaded as as if Binarysequence was the owner. Any wikipedia trolls here to explain whats going on?

I fixed few to properly attribute Dave
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Sensor.jpg&action=history
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Lens_Assembly.jpg&action=history

I've noticed it on this wikipedia page before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_departure_warning_system
Yep same user, seems to be in the list somewhere too.

[SeanB]

I have a slightly later version of that camera, that uses genuine Sony Memory Sticks. Will brain fart if you put in one that is too big ( more than 64M IIRC) and crash and die. Also uses that so lovely 7V2 Infolithium battery, which is a fancy ( and eye wateringly expensive if bought new then and even more so now) package with 2 bog standard lithium ion cells and a small protection board in the fancy case. The one I have is a little dead, as it will charge for 20 minutes, then you place in the camera and you have 10 minutes to take your 4 photos before it does a low battery warning and shuts down. Some day I will repack it, but as my other camera just uses AA cells, and the camcorder works as well for quick and dirty shots it is pretty low. The big advantage it has is that you can do a macro shot in ambient lighting, and have it come out sharp and clear.

[robrenz]

A tip for all you young players, and also for Dave, apparently:
If a piece of Japanese electronics gear has split arrows pointing to some of the screws, only those screws that the arrows point to need to be removed to open the case, as a first step to servicing.

Thanks, that is a very useful tip

[GrandTheftAuto4life]

I should have kept my Minolta Digital Camera with a whopping 2.3 MP and 3 times digital zoom, no optical zoom at all and it came with an 8MB compact flash card which could fit 22 photos or 23 seconds video in Apple Quicktime .MOV format (Required Quicktime version 4 for playback on a pc)

Maybe it would have been a nice quick teardown...

[EvilGeniusSkis]

I remember using a floppy camera for school when I was in grade 4 which was 8 years ago.   On another note on tear-downs of stuff like this can you tell us how hard it would be to re-use the interesting parts from it such as the screen and lens-sensor assembly in this case?

[dentaku]

If there's no floppy drives in any of your computers you can probably find one in some of the junk you've collected from the garbage room.

Images were included at end of the video. A viewer who works in the same building bought one over when I tweeted I needed one!

If you compare it to most 640X480 webcams, that's not horrible.

[EEVblog]

Original photos:
http://www.eevblog.com/files/Mavica
The PC floppy is playing up, couldn't get them  all.

[EEVblog]

I think teardowns should have at least one thing to recommend them over any previous teardown. At least being the first teardown of its type.

I agree.
Although for something like new test gear, that's a different story. People want to see inside the guts they might want to buy.

[EEVblog]

Dave are you Binarysequence?

Yes I am. Wikipedia will not let you use your real name, or that of website or brand etc.

looks like some asshole just appropriated them as his own, didnt even use same License Dave used (CC 2.0).

That's Flickrs fault. I want to make all my images public domain, but it doesn't have that option. The next best choice is CC attribution.

[retrolefty]

On your comment that the battery gauge display showing I think 50% on the screen being a 'bit dodgy'. I suspect it was right on as you were supplying 7.4 vdc. A 2 cell Li battery has a nominal 7.2 vdc rating but fully charged will be around 8.4vdc so I suspect the gauge is pretty accurate.

[lilshawn]

i have the later version of this camera... the FD71. it's floppy drive was VASTLY improved with a much much faster access times compared to this model. (both of which ive used)

i'll have to dig it up for some nostalgia photos....i think i have a USB floppy drive out in the carpark.

[EEVblog]

On your comment that the battery gauge display showing I think 50% on the screen being a 'bit dodgy'. I suspect it was right on as you were supplying 7.4 vdc.

Yes, but I was under the impression that the InfoLithium system used smart charge coulomb counting to get the battery gauge, not just measure the battery voltage.

[Stonent]

i have the later version of this camera... the FD71. it's floppy drive was VASTLY improved with a much much faster access times compared to this model. (both of which ive used)

i'll have to dig it up for some nostalgia photos....i think i have a USB floppy drive out in the carpark.

I remember shortly before floppies went away some 2X speed drives hit the market so I guess they might have put one of those in.

[NiHaoMike]

There was also some old camera that recorded to mini CDs.

[delmadord]

Is it just me or the sound quality dropped a lot when Dave switched to the Tagarno for viewing the sensor? 

[EEVblog]

Is it just me or the sound quality dropped a lot when Dave switched to the Tagarno for viewing the sensor? 

No, it's not you. Something went wrong.

[JoeMuc2013]

Hi Dave,

great piece of retro thank you!
Now that you mentioned that rumour about the actual resolution being only 640x240, I watched some old images from a trip to Vienna (back in 1998) and I think I agree that pixels are probably double height. Which makes that phenomenal piece of work only a 0,15 MPixel camera, duh.

In my opinion, commercials stated this to be a VGA camera anyway. A bit of a lie as some web sites suggest the sensor is actually 640x240 but images were resampled to have VGA dimensions.
The shot attached was taken in the Vienna National Museum. The really bad aliasing kind of proves that the resolution is only half in the Y dimension and the interpolation failed miserably to hide that.

Greets
Joe

[Rasz]

Dave are you Binarysequence?

Yes I am. Wikipedia will not let you use your real name, or that of website or brand etc.

oh, sorry

looks like some asshole just appropriated them as his own, didnt even use same License Dave used (CC 2.0).

That's Flickrs fault. I want to make all my images public domain, but it doesn't have that option. The next best choice is CC attribution.

You can, and should use your real name in the Author field when uploading media. Source field is also useful, link will be nofollow, nonetheless it will steer people towards you/eevblog. Wikipedia doesnt like you writing about yourself or linking to yourself. But image attribution is another matter.

[EEVblog]

You can, and should use your real name in the Author field when uploading media.

It's an extra step, couldn't be bothered really.

[Hypernova]

This thread has gotten this long without this ad being linked?
  :


I remember seeing it on TV as a kid, personally I thought it was a bit kludgy even back then.

[Clear as mud]

A tip for all you young players, and also for Dave, apparently:
If a piece of Japanese electronics gear has split arrows pointing to some of the screws, only those screws that the arrows point to need to be removed to open the case, as a first step to servicing.

I know, I was watching Dave take out all the screws on the underside, and when he removed three without arrows, I was yelling, "No, don't take out those screws yet!"
 

[Clear as mud]

Where I used to work, we were using one of these Sony floppy disk cameras as late as 2005.  When I later worked as gate security for college basketball games, I had to enforce a rule about nobody bringing in cameras with more than 3x optical zoom, and I was telling one of the other gate keepers about this Sony camera that had 10x zoom.  Someone probably could have snuck one in (probably still could) because they're so old and clunky looking, who would guess they have such a good zoom lens?  Of course, the sheer size of it compared to newer cameras would now probably draw attention to it and warrant a closer inspection.

[tchicago]

This thread has gotten this long without this ad being linked?
  :


I remember seeing it on TV as a kid, personally I thought it was a bit kludgy even back then.

Then there were CD-recording cameras, under same Sony Mavica brand. Clunky as well

[Hypernova]

I had to enforce a rule about nobody bringing in cameras with more than 3x optical zoom

Off topic but why?

the 10x optical is actually pretty impressive, consumer grade stuff usually stop at 3x. The sensor may be dated but the optic is still good by modern standards.

[SeanB]

The optics probably would be good with a more modern 10Mp sensor, and at least there are none of those horrid 4v electrolytics that gave other Sony consumer stuff a built in lifetime of around 2-3 years before failing. A lot of attention to detail there, and actually designed for servicing, as Sony obviously thought the drive would fail in the product lifetime and designed it to be somewhat easy to replace.

[olafnew]

Dave - the audio quality of the Samson Go Mic is horrible. Get rid of it. Your videos are always so superb on the audio quality, that listening them is a treat, but this new microphone - is rubbish, and the audio is horrible, starting from the dynamic range, and finishing with "buzzing" of the voice.

[AnnabellaRenee87]

Dave, I can't lie, I love anything that uses a floppy drive, I must find one of these cameras now lol.

I must have it.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[Don Hills]

I've owned both the FD7 and the FD71.
The sensor appears to be a video camera sensor - in the settings, you get the option of Field or Frame mode. The flash was pretty useless - it appeared to have an auto sensor, but it always appeared to flash at the same brightness regardless. The FD71 did have a double speed floppy drive, and it had a "raw" option that recorded one uncompressed image taking most of a floppy. The raw image quality wasn't greatly improved over the compressed quality. The FD71 had a clever backlight modification: the top edge of the diffuser for the LCD backlight was brought through the top of the camera case. Bright sunlight shining on this augmented the cold cathode tube backlight, making it easier to use in daylight.

[AmmoJammo]

I had a Kodak DC120, apparently released in 1997, but I didn't get it till 2003 maybe?

Anyway, 1 megapixel... which makes me wonder why the Sony was 0.3mp from the same era?

The Kodak also recorded to memory of some sort, and you could copy the photos from the device via serial

Perhaps because the 1mp photos are up to nearly 500kb.. you wouldn't fit many on a floppy disc, so why make a 1mp camera.... 

[EEVblog]

Dave - the audio quality of the Samson Go Mic is horrible. Get rid of it. Your videos are always so superb on the audio quality, that listening them is a treat, but this new microphone - is rubbish, and the audio is horrible, starting from the dynamic range, and finishing with "buzzing" of the voice.

It's not the microphone, it was the level settings and possibly a fault with USB encoding in the Avermedia software.

[silent]

A 32-bit microcontroller and a hardware character generator.

Looks like the whole display support was done by ASIC CCD serial data to composite video converter plus analog in/out OSD chip and the microcontroller was nothing to do with the image generation. It looks a little funny in 2014  .


Btw. do you remember these?
http://touque.ca/EC/students/MouzannarF/PolaroidCamera.jpg
That would look nice with a 5,25' floppy drive instead of instant-film slot .

[marshallh]

Here's another intersting relic from 1995 I inherited:




Dycam, has an internal SH2 processor that performs very rudimentary JPEG-like compression. (Mostly the discrete cosine transofrm and quantization). The files are stored on  a 2 megabyte PCMCIA flash card. You can load the files onto your computer with a RS232 cable, and some postprocessing by the software to convert to a BMP.

It was purchased for several thousand dollars for architectural documentation and design inspection.

[skinnymalink]

I recently got hold of a 2001 Nikon Coolpix 900. I swapped out the hot filter for a piece of floppy disc cut to the same size. It is now sensitive to IR light and less sensitive to visible light. Unfortunately the focus is quite right because the sensor is now closer to lens (can fix that) but at close range it take very interesting photos like this selfie. The swivel arrangement of the camera which seems so whacky now is actually very handy for selfies. 

[theatrus]

Here's another intersting relic from 1995 I inherited:




Dycam, has an internal SH2 processor that performs very rudimentary JPEG-like compression. (Mostly the discrete cosine transofrm and quantization). The files are stored on  a 2 megabyte PCMCIA flash card. You can load the files onto your computer with a RS232 cable, and some postprocessing by the software to convert to a BMP.

It was purchased for several thousand dollars for architectural documentation and design inspection.

That looks a lot like an Apple QuickTake 100.

[baljemmett]

The sensor appears to be a video camera sensor - in the settings, you get the option of Field or Frame mode.

Makes sense - before digital cameras hit the consumer market, there were 'still video cameras' such as the Canon ion series.  They recorded a single field or frame in analogue format on a miniature disc (one per track), and could play it back as a video signal for display or digitisation with a video capture card.

I think I have a duplicate of one of the Canon models in my collection somewhere, if Dave had any interest in looking at one…  Will have to check, though!

[Clear as mud]

I had to enforce a rule about nobody bringing in cameras with more than 3x optical zoom

Off topic but why?

They never told us the reason for the rule against bringing high-zoom cameras to the basketball games, but I always assumed it had something to do with the TV and other media wanting to be the only ones with the capability to get good pictures.  It's possible that the university athletics department had charged them a fee to bring their cameras in, and guaranteed that nobody could bring in a good camera without paying the fee.  Another possibility is that nobody was allowed to bring in good cameras at all, and the athletic department themselves maintained control over all the professional-grade cameras and charged everybody for the pictures.

[marshallh]

I believe that Apple and Kodak both license the Dycam design in the mid-90s.

[Agent24]

Original photos:
http://www.eevblog.com/files/Mavica
The PC floppy is playing up, couldn't get them  all.

Those look really good for something that old - much better quality than my webcam which is also supposed to be 640x480!

[ppaing126]

Hello, thanks for this great forum!

I come here with a question still can't answer: Some days ago I was checking a pcb that uses the uPD72069 floppy drive controller. I searched thru the web and all datasheets for that floppy controller is the same pdf version, the one that identifies as "T-52-33-51".

It happen that the pin-out version for the 100 pin version does not correspond with the chip I have in my pcb. The 2 Xtall resonators, the Gnd's, the Vcc are on different pins. Why I'm posting this here? Because looking at the video of the Mavica I see it also has the IC pinout same as my pcb. But this does not match what the datasheet shows. Please look at the video, still on the section where the uPD72069 shows, and you will see the 16 Mhz resonator is connected to the pins #82 and #83 (like in my pcb). But the pdf says the resonator should go to #56 and #57. It is place for the second resonator but that also do not match the pin-out either.

So I'm trying to find and download this camera schematic to see if there is a identification for the uPD usage pins. But the schematics I found have little to say about the uPD, even it does not appears.

Is just me, or the uPD70069 pdf is totally wrong in all copies I have found so far? 
Does someone has a schematic of other equipment where this floppy controller have been used...?

I need the correct pin-out for scope signals analysis as my pcb refuses to load the diskettes.


btw, I borrow a camera like this long long  time ago, to take pictures of my sister weeding 

[ppaing126]

Finally I found out that all the world documents for uPD72069 about the 100 pin description are wrong.
Even the NEC book released at that year is wrong.

What I don't know is: where the Mavica builders got the correct pinout then..?