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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

What is a Firmware Bug ?

Firmware and software are the same thing. It's computer code either way you look at it. Software that is implemented in semi-permanent chips is usually refferred to as firmware. It can't be as readily changed as regular software like on a hard drive.

Hope that's not too much of an oversimplification.
 
Perfect that answers my question ,so the firmware bug is a problem with the software coding on one of the internal semi-permanent chips.So i guess when jim talks about a team of 20 people working day and night on this problem , he would be talking about programmers writing new code and testing it until it works. These code writers are an amazing breed of people , i really appreciate what they are doing although i have to admit i have no personal interest in learning any programming language myself . So lets here it for the code writers doing something i would'nt do myself but necessary for the camera I really need/want. THANKYOU
 
Programmers write lines and lines of code to activate and govern any function not hard-wired (routines). And that's a lot.

Commonly a bug takes the form of a line of code that, say runs process Z, interfering with a line of code that runs, say, process D. First problem is that it might not be readily apparent that it's process Z causing the problem because they might not actually be expected to ever meet at all. Even worse is when process Z is actually conflicting with process Q, that in combination with Z, takes out A and J, which causes N to run backwards, which causes D to stall.

It's like trying to unpick a sweater knitted of water (or recut someone else's multi-layer edit).
 
Firmware Bug is main reason why I am not coder or programmer :)
 
Brian Petrie said:
Just get a can of Raid:)
Click to expand...

Agent J: [crashes through back window of a subway car] ... big boy. Transit authority people! Please move to the forward car, we got a bug in the electrical system!
[passengers ignore him]
Agent J: Yo! People! We got a bug in the electrical system!
[Jeff bites off a large portion of the subway car, and the passengers start running to the front]
Agent J: Yeah, now y'all runnin'! Now y'all- no, no, no, come on, sit down, sit down! It's only a 600 foot worm!
 
Petr Dvorak said:
Firmware Bug is main reason why I am not coder or programmer :)
Click to expand...

Yeah. Officially the most depressed people on the planet. Well, of those who have food and basic sanitary requirements (although, some of the coders I've met seem to lack the latter:laugh:)

Everything's always broken until the moment it's fixed. Then something else is broken...
 
Like the others have stated firmware is the group of programs that are loaded into non-volatile memory that are the 'operating system' of the camera. I'm not sure if Red has ever admitted to it or not but it is most likely a Linux kernel with a bunch of custom drivers that they created to run their specific hardware.

The trouble is that to make code run quickly requires a low level language. As an example a calculator written in Assembly will run faster than one written in Basic, but it will take you a year to write it. Red's drivers and some of the kernel (Linux or otherwise) are probably written in some pretty low level languages, which are that much harder to debug.

Bob
 
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