Programmer Got a Minecraft Server Running On His Canon DSLR (petapixel.com) 14
linuxwrangler shares a report from PetaPixel: A programmer who goes by the name Turtius has managed to install and run a Minecraft server on a Canon SL2 DSLR camera. Turtius was working on reverse-engineering Canon's network processor when he decided to try and see if it could be done. [You can view it in action here on YouTube].
It is important to note that the camera is just the server, not the client. The game itself is running on the computer, the "world" that is displayed in-game is simply connected to the camera. Theoretically, others could connect to the camera's network and join this same Minecraft server via their own computer. [...] The SL2 does seem to be at the limits of its capability, however, as Turtius says that it can barely make photos and videos in this state and sometimes will crash. He believes that if the camera processor were a bit more powerful, custom world generation could be supported. "It's avrcraft," Turtius explains on Reddit. "It's fully running on the camera. I reverse-engineered the network module used by Canon which just so happens to expose Unix-like sockets and integrated avrcraft with Magic Lantern. It's running a custom implementation provided by Canon's operating system and using custom code to interact with the stuff provided by Canon on a lower level."
You can find the full source code here on GitHub. Just be warned that you could brick your camera if you try this yourself.
It is important to note that the camera is just the server, not the client. The game itself is running on the computer, the "world" that is displayed in-game is simply connected to the camera. Theoretically, others could connect to the camera's network and join this same Minecraft server via their own computer. [...] The SL2 does seem to be at the limits of its capability, however, as Turtius says that it can barely make photos and videos in this state and sometimes will crash. He believes that if the camera processor were a bit more powerful, custom world generation could be supported. "It's avrcraft," Turtius explains on Reddit. "It's fully running on the camera. I reverse-engineered the network module used by Canon which just so happens to expose Unix-like sockets and integrated avrcraft with Magic Lantern. It's running a custom implementation provided by Canon's operating system and using custom code to interact with the stuff provided by Canon on a lower level."
You can find the full source code here on GitHub. Just be warned that you could brick your camera if you try this yourself.
But why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
My argument to that would be: Do it if you can!* The 'should' is reserved for those that implement. Not those that discover. There is nothing wrong with expanding knowledge.
*Now, there are a few exceptions. But for those we have ethics and they can be narrowly defined, like 'do not kill or gravely harm fellow humans'. And scientists that do experiments of which ethics are questionable, most of the times know that before they even seriously begin their research, or they are lousy scientists...
Re: (Score:3)
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
Oh I like that. I think I'll slap that on a lunchbox and sell it.
Doom (Score:4, Funny)
Next step, get it running Doom.
Re: (Score:3)
Running DOOM on cameras has been done. There was an open-source OS called CHDK for Canon cameras that ran on their Digic-series CPUs. It could do all sorts of things like scripting, movement sensing, external triggering and the like. I don't know if it's still a thing though.
Re: (Score:1)
CHDK's best feature (for me) was adding the ability of zooming whlle video recording (something that was disabled on cheap cameras). It also allowed saving the pictures in raw format instead of transforming them to lossy jpeg -- something that was also only available on "professional" cameras, not on the cheap toy I could afford.
And yeah, it's still a thing as long as the camera still works -- it's not like I have to update its firmware every two months in order to avoid being powned via some chrome bug.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish someone would reverse engineer the Fujifilm android app and make it usable. It is almost comical how poor the official one is.
Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Just because I can".
-The answer to pretty much every bit of progress in human history (arguably).
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Apparently the logic behind the expression "necessity is the mother of invention" is beyond your ability to fathom.
"It was all just for fun!" Not.
Canon (Score:2)
Re:Canon (Score:4, Funny)
To be fair back when city walls were popular, they were quite useful!
Someone call Cringely (Score:4, Funny)
New Kickstarter proposal. Send me your $500 DSLR and I will send you back a raspberry pi based Minecraft server. Case not included.
Re: (Score:2)
You are doing it all wrong!!
You sent back a case of a raspberry pi! Not the raspberry pi itself!
Bonus points if you manage to sent back a picture of a raspberry pi, in an envelope.
Two bonus points if you get away with sending the picture via email!
But can it run Crysis? (Score:1)
But can it run Crysis?