Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: pcats@cryton.demon.co.uk (Patrick Arnold)
Path: brunix!sgiblab!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!dis.demon.co.uk!cryton.demon.co.uk!pcats
Subject: Re: Looking for cheap, slow, low-res solid-state imager... 
Distribution: world
References: <EDWARDS.94Jan13213556@carnation.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: The Serial Port
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Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 19:07:17 +0000
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A few years ago, a company in the UK called Commotion Ltd produced a number of 
simple robotics control devices, etc, and among them was a simple video camera
that used a 64k DRAM chip. I have one of these, and it worked very well. The
interesting thing is that the chip was actually manufactured with a window 
over the silicon die. The camera used a standard, although very small, SLR
camera lens, and came with software for pattern recognition, outline and area
calculation, etc, all for a UK 8-bit home computer (based on the 6502).

The company is still trading, although I don't know whether they still make 
the camera. However, the circuit is quite simple, and could easily be reverse
engineered. It should be possible to find a solvent for the plastic resin that
is used to encapsulate modern DRAM chips. A 4Mb DRAM should make quite a high
res imager. In addition, I can probably lay hands on a fairly large number
of old, ceramic DRAM chips, if anybody is interested.

Patrick.

-- 
The shortest distance between two points has not yet been built.

pcats@cryton.demon.co.uk vox+44(749)670058 fax+44(749)670809 dat+44(749)670030
