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Fujifilm's Tech History

History

  • In 1988, Fujifilm released their first 0.4mp digital camera, the Fujix DS-1P (first commercial digital camera)
  • Fuji released the $3500 Fujifilm S1 Pro in 2000, which accepted firmware updates
  • In 2003, Fujifilm first released a firmware update and hackers on DPReview started to tinker with it
  • Fujifilm started out using VxWorks, then later switched to MiSPO iTRON/NORTi
  • More modern cameras use ThreadX, an open source RTOS. Many pieces of the original 2003 Fujifilm code is still present.
  • SQLite was introduced in ~2012 to manage special settings in the camera. SQLite starts up about 10 minutes after powering on.
  • In 2016-2017, a web server and networking drivers were introduced into the firmware, for WiFi connectivity (wpa_supplicant)
  • In 2022, Linux is booted on the X-H2S for WiFi and processing functionality.
  • To this day, Fujifilm continues to use most of the original firmware code from the early 2000s.

CPUs

  • Early Fujifilm cameras started out with 64 bit TX49 MIPS III CPUs but switched to 32 bit ARM later on
  • Smaller cameras have the FF4224 SoC, but there is also a FF4226. These appear to be ARM v6 CPUs.
  • Recently, Fujifilm started compiling their firmware in thumb bytecode.
  • The SoC has no internal memory and must be paired with external RAM chips (1gb is common)
  • Flash chips tend to be under the SD card reader (and tend to be 64mb)