[sdiy] Faulty FZ10M help

[Rainer Buchty]

On Thu, 14 Jul 2011, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:

> The display backlight is very dim, but it does light just a little 
> bit.

So you at least have won a replacement of the EL backlight foil. This 
requires "crack-opening" the LCD carrier during which procedure the aged 
plastic ribbon cable will most likely take its chance of shedding off 
some contact glue or even the conductive print.

> There's nothing displayed on it.  Nothing much happens if you push 
> buttons, but if you wait for (I've timed it) 102 seconds the "MODIFY" 
> light comes on.  After that, not much else happens.

Weird.

> Reading through the FZ-1 ROM disassembly it looks like it should 
> grumble about failed RAM very early on.  There seem to be a lot of 
> delays waiting for the LCD to go ready - is it possible that the LCD 
> is just plain borked and everything else is waiting for it?

Might be. I still have no real clue how that LCD unit really works and 
what the role of that LCD-interfacing "GAL" component is.

But... I would join in for an OS hack and replacement LCD unit where the 
print, line, box, etc. routines are replaced by something driving a less 
obscure LCD unit. (My FZ-1 is also collecting dust for far too long.)

Some time ago I did a write-up on some wild guesses regarding the LCD 
unit:
 	http://www.buchty.net/casio/display.html

Rainer