Sunday, May 18
Mattel Camera
Mattel Camera
Mattel makes several digital cameras, among them the BarbieCam and the Nick Click. Both are identical from a hardware/software standpoint and both are relatively inexpensive. With a resolution of only 160x120, they are by no means high-res, but they do present some fun experimenting opportunities.
The cameras use a 56K 8/N/1 serial protocol, and thus can be adapted for use with most any computer. The command protocols are detailed here and are easy to use. Note that the camera has little native intelligence, running from a variant of the Intel 8051. As a consequence, the image data from the camera is almost completely raw, requiring the host PC to demosaic the Bayer RGB data. While fundamentally simple, this process can be done in many ways. Here are just a few links to more information on this:
