The camera that never was: A journey with the Digita OS compatible cameras

We're going to start by playing Kneedeep in the Dead Again on Ultra Violence, because why not. Squeaky, squeaky. You can still hear some of that squeaking coming through. Well, you know, 'ultra violence.' The controls are still awful, but that's how it is - this tiny little D-pad with like a complete lack of dead zone. It just sort of rocks around this center mass. If it weren't for the absolutely terrible ergonomic design of holding this camera, I would completely forget this is a camera. I mean, this could be like an early 32-bit console or something.

Okay, well that's, that. It's no surprise, so we'll quit out of here. And you get some craziness right there whenever the camera's power cycling. But yeah, we'll get back to the menu. So I wasn't able to get MESS working, but I was able to get MAME or MAMED working, so we'll do that. MAMED! This is an absolutely awesome source port, MAME 0.37 beta six. So I'm gonna switch some of these options to make sure that it's not rotating around on you. Because yeah, I mean it's easy enough to rotate the camera in your hands to get the proper vertical kinda gameplay, but we're playing on a TV, we don't want that.

Well, let's try Frogger. Typical MAME start up there, but as you can see it's a little slow. I mean, it works. Oof. Get about a half second lag every time everything is just running abysmally slowly. But that's what you get man. I mean this is about how MAME would run on that MAC 60100 I have anyway. So, you know. Let's get out of there.

And it's the same with all of these in terms of everything running slow. So we'll get Pac-Man going here. You can already tell it's a little bit slow. This is the special fart noise edition of Pac-Man. That's enough of that. As you can see, there was some issues with the screen being cut off on the top and bottom as well, and that has to do with the aspect ratio thing that I was messing around with - the rotation and all that.

You can apply some stretching or resolution scaling and whatnot, but it really doesn't like doing that. And then some games like Galaga here, they just don't run at all. In fact, it freezes the whole camera every time I try to run it. Now that may just be an emulator issue. It's tricky to get this thing configured when all you're looking at is what's on here. And all of the things that you'd wanna switch around with command lines and all that, ah, you can't really.

Unless you do it before you put everything on the memory card, so. But here's another one that I was able to get working. This is called Multi Pac, it really is just Pac-Man using the same ROMs that MAME would but it's supposedly optimized for this camera. And well, it does kind of... well no, I think it runs about the same. And there's no sound but...

So anyway, I don't know why I showed this. Unfortunately, all the other things that I wanted to try - like there's a version of Boulder Dash and Minesweeper and several other things - they all seem to be made for like the DC290 and I guess they just don't work on here. I mean I haven't been able to get them working at all.

So this is the other thing that I've really gotten working is PLAYMP3. Now this is a very simple MP3 player, it doesn't even have any visuals really. But it does in fact play MP3 files that you put on the root directory of the compact flash card. So I've got the Andrew Hulshult LGR theme song remix. So yeah, this is just an absolutely fascinating thing. Like the fact that it works as well as it does and allows you to run Doom... dang it. It's just way too enjoyable to me.

Well I guess that I'll probably cover this camera again in some way in the future, just to do more of like a traditional LGR retrospective. And maybe I can get some of the other cameras in the range to sort of compare it to, or maybe one of the other Digita OS compatible cameras. I don't know, if there's anything that you'd like to see let me know and if you enjoyed this let me know that to. Or if you had any experience messing around with this thing yourself. I don't know man, leave comments.

Either way I hope that you enjoyed this video in general, and as always new ones are coming out every week here on LGR so stay tuned if you like that sort of thing.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Now that's what I calla point and shoot camera.Greetings and welcome toan LGR thing involving Doomrunning on devices thatare unusual .This is the Kodak DigitalScience DC260 ZOOM Camerareleased around June of 1998for an asking price of $999or around $1577 adjusted for inflation.And on the surface thiswas a pretty typicallate '90s camera for consumer market.Kind of a mid, upper mid range,not the best but certainly not cheap.You get a 1.6 megapixel sensor,an auto focusing 3x optical zoom lensand all a bunch of other cool stuff.You know, compact flash,memory card storageto store your flash picsand jpeg format photos.And connections all over the place,serial and infrared but also USB.In fact this was one ofthe first digital camerason the consumer space to actuallyuse USB that I can find anyway.But that's just all camerastuff we're not reallygonna be looking at thatat least in this video,I might cover it again inthe future just a look at itin terms of how itperforms as a retro camera.But it's all the stuffinside and in particularthe Digita OS, it's kind ofthis Digital Science thing.But yeah Digita OS is whatit runs and that is somethingreleased by FlashPoint Technology in 1997.And this was an initiativeto have the power of adesktop computer without allthe desktop computer stuff.You know just stickall these image editingand manipulation thingsin the camera itself.So end users could dothings like review, edit,and share photos directlyfrom your camera.But developers could alsodevelop third party appsthat could be installedto the camera itself.Which is really forwardthinking stuff for the '90s.I mean good grief downloadingapps to augment your camera,I mean that took years for that kindof thing to be common place.And the reason that is possibleis because inside of this thingis actually running a 66MHz PowerPC NPC 823 CPU,eight megabytes of RAM, and11 kHz sound input and output.This is kinda like havingan older Macintosh computer,like a Power PC in a digital camera.It's pretty nuts, likeI have the MacintoshThe Power Mac 60100 and it'sgot really similar specs,66 MHz Power PC CPU and it's got more RAM'cause I've upgraded it.But I mean yeah it's capableof running Power PC stuffunder this Digita OS.You combine that with thatsound and the little D-pad here,and the two inch TFT LCDwith 288 x 216 resolutionand you've got yourself aninteresting little machine here.So of course we gonna installsome software on here,in particular Doom butalso some other things.We're gonna start withDoom though because I meanthat's the title of the video so.yeah really all you needis this camera itselfand the normal stuffthat goes a long with itlike a compact flashcard and a card reader.These will work with otherDC200 series cameras,not the DC220 really itdoesn't have enough memorybut the others one's aswell as some other camerasfrom Minolta, HP, and Pentax,but yeah we're just gonnalook at this one right here.Really the first thing todo is just take your CF cardplug that into the readerand then get that goingin whatever your computersystem is that has acapability of reading these cards.And then you'll need someZIP files from the developersof this source port ofDoom, or DOOMD as it's knownput together by JimSerene and Scott Angel.They also did some other things like MAMEand MESS ports to this camera,so I'll have to try those out later.But yeah we're just gonnago with Doom for now.And it's extremely simpleyou just extract the CAMapplication file into thesystem folder on the compactflash card and then you copythe Doom WAD into the basedirectly of the card itself and that's it,the camera will takecare of everything else.So yeah we'll be trying someother things in additionto Doom but for now let'sjust get this thing pluggedinto the wall and powered on.So while this does supportfour AA batteries for gettingpower normally it's not really optimizedfor doing so with the LCD turned on,like it'll last a while ifyou're just using the viewfinder,normal camera stuff but we'regonna be playing Doom on hereso I'm gonna be plugging in the AC adapterthat it came with andjust sort of forgettingthe whole battery situation.And that's pretty much that,we'll just put it into review mode here,power it on and yeah this'll be the thingwhere you normally go intomessing around with your imagesand whatnot just sort of lookingat what's on the camera of course.Checking out the memorycard and options and things.And yeah this is prettymuch the Digita OS,and it's all the stuff that you normallydo on a digital camera.Including camera to camerainfrared transfers, oh.But anyway this is really what we want,we have the applicationssection which is normallyunpopulated with anythingbut of course we've installedDoom so we're gonna start Doom.And so yeah you just sort of start it up,click the power button really quickand it'll boot into this application.And it takes a second to load here butyou know it's a digitalcamera we can forgive it.And there we go, we've gotdoom running on a Kodakdigital camera from1998 .Oh yeah I'll zoom in here a little bit,so the demo is playingin the background there.I've got sound,got the volume wheel right thereand these buttons are yourenter and escape keys.I believe that's enter yeah,menu is escape.Bring up the main menu here and yeahI mean you can see it isjust straight up Doom.It's just a port of Doom,there is no musicI assume that Kodakdidn't exactly worry aboutlike a general MIDI implementationwhen they designed this thing sothat's fine.Let's go into new game andwe're gonna start a game here,knee deep in the dead episode one,ah we'll do hurt me plenty why not.And well here's somethingthat's kind of weird,I don't know if you can here thisYeah there's like asqueaking sound coming outof the speaker whennothing else is going onor really just about all the time.I don't know if that's likethe capacitors being weirdor who knows what, anywayit's there can't reallyget rid of it I've tried.Ah but yeah I mean youknow, here we go we got Doomand we've got the little D-pad down herethat is perfectly functional,Er it's not great but it worksI mean what are you gonna doit's a digital camera playing Doom.We have got this zoom wheel up here sothat does shooting and thentelephoto goes to open things.So we'll go to the doorhere and open this up.Yeah!And you know it actuallyruns pretty decently,it's about on par withwhat my Macintosh 60100 isand that makes total sense.I believe this is a map yeah,that opens this, this enables the run modewhich is a little too much.We have this here forswitching between weapons.I don't really have anythingbut fists and pistolsright now andanyway, yeah.I kind of wish that the shutter buttonwas shoot but it's not,instead you have this over here.I mean it's fine, it works.Oh, I do wish the D-padwere a little more purposelydirectional if that makes sense.It's kind of vague you'rejust sort of rocking a longthis weird center axis.It kind of reminds me oflike a Gravis GamePad honestlythat's not a great D-pad either.So it's not a positive reminder,but it is a reminder none the less.Mmm I don't know why thisis so enjoyable to me,man playing Doom on absolutely anythingthat it doesn't make sense,makes all the sense inthe world in my opinion.If it plays Doom I want to do it.All right, yeah let'sjust get out of here.Yeah, oh yeah photo finish right there.Next level, we're gonna play throughthe whole game in this vi--No I'm notjust a couple of levels,just to show you what's up.Now that's what I call a pointand shoot camera .I mean it's a totallyplayable version of the game,like it's way more so than I anticipatedwhen I first learned aboutthis however many years ago.it's just fun.Here's where I wanted to go,all right.Yeah.Nope, not gonna mess with you sir.And we're outta here.Nice .And there we go that isDoom on the Kodak DC260and actually I wanna show acouple of those other thingsthat it can run likeMAME and MESS but alsoI am going to stop ruiningmy posture and my eyesightand use an AV cable that it comes with,because this allows you tohave composite video output.So, in fact we'll use thisas little handheld console.A mini MAC kind ofsituation, this isjust so cool, ah yeahlet's hook it up to a TV.Okay I got the camera plugged into the TVand there you go.So yeah this should bea little easier to playsince I can just hold the camera down hereoff screen like a controller.Let's do, oh yeah that'sjust the shareware WAD,I guess we'll play kneedeep in the dead againon ultra violence 'cause why not.Squeaky, squeaky.Yeah you can still hear some of thatsqueaking coming through.Well you know, 'ultra violence.'Yeah the controls are still awful butthat's how it is this tinylittle D-pad with likea complete lack of dead zone.It just sort of rocksaround this center mass.If it weren't for theabsolutely terrible ergonomicsof holding this camera I would completelyforget this is a camera.I mean this could be like an early32-bit console or something.Okay well that's, that .It's no surprise, so wewill quit out of here.And you get some crazinessright here wheneverthe camera's power cycling.But yeah we'll get back to the menu.So I wasn't able to get MESS working,but I was able to getMAME or MAMED working,so we'll do that.MAMED!So this is an absolutelyawesome source port,MAME 0.37 beta six.So I'm gonna switch some of these optionsto make sure that it's notrotating around on you.Because yeah I mean it'seasy enough torotate the camera in your hands to get theproper vertical kinda gameplay butyeah we're playing on aTV we don't want that.Well let's try Frogger.Typical MAME start up there,but as you can see it's a little slow.I mean it works.Oof.Get about a half second lageverything is justrunning abysmally slowly.But that is,that's what you get man.I mean this is about how MAME would runon that MAC 60100 I have anyway.So, you know.Let's get out of there.And it's the same with all of thesein terms of everything running slow.So we'll get Pac-Man going here.You can already tellit's a little bit slowSo this is the special fartnoise edition of Pac-Man.That's enough of that.As you can see therethe screen was cut offon the top and bottom as well,and that has to do withthe aspect ratio thingthat I was messing around with,the rotation and all that.You can apply some stretching,or resolution scaling and whatnot,but it really doesn't like doing that.And then some games like Galaga here,they just don't run at all.In fact it freezes the whole cameraevery time I try to run it.Now that may just be an emulator issue.It's tricky to get this thing configuredwhen all you're lookingat is what's on here.And all of the things thatyou'd wanna switch aroundwith command lines and allthat, ah you can't really.Unless you do it before you put everythingon the memory card, so.But here's another one that's on herethat I was able to get working.This is called Multi Pac,it really is just Pac-Manusing the same ROMs that MAME wouldbut it's supposedlyoptimized for this camera.And well it does kind of,well no I think it runs about the same.And there's no sound but...So anyway I don't know why I showed this.Unfortunately all the otherthings that I wanted to trylike there's a version ofBoulder Dash and Minesweeperand several other things.They all seem to bemade for like the DC290and I guess they just don't work on here.I mean I haven't been ableto get them working at all.So this is the other thing thatI've really gotten working is PLAYMP3.Now this is a very simple MP3 player,it doesn't even have any visuals really.But it does in fact playMP3 files that you puton the root directory ofthe compact flash card.So I've got the,that's the Andrew HulshultLGR theme song remix.So yeah this is just anabsolutely fascinating thing.Like the fact that itworks as well as it doesand allows you to runDoom dang it .It's just way to enjoyable to me.Well I guess that I'll probablycover this camera againin some way in the future,just to do more of like atraditional LGR retrospective.And maybe I can get some of the othercameras in the range tosort of compare it to,or maybe one of the otherDigita OS compatible cameras.I don't know, if there'sanything that you'd like to seelet me know and if you enjoyedthis let me know that to.Or if you had any experience messingaround with this thing yourself.I don't know man leave comments.Either way I hope that youenjoyed this video in general,and as always new one'scoming out every weekhere on LGR so stay tuned if you like.And as always thank youvery much for watching LGR.\n"