40-150 f2.8 bricked by EM1mkii

tt321 wrote:

Airmel wrote:

tt321 wrote:

Mark Thornton wrote:

karlreed wrote:

This can be done by booting via a pointer to the active system. The VERY LAST THING the updating s/w does is to change this pointer to point to the new systems.

That only works if you have space for both new and old to exist simultaneously. It is regrettably common to cut corners on space for firmware.

Well the other option is to keep a small bios type section which is not changed by changing FW. So if no FW is found the bios means the lens is still alive for the purpose of installing FW.

As a matter of fact, this is precisely how field firmware update is performed on millions of designs today (as well as a number of Olympus designs).

When you update your Olympus camera via the SD card method, there is a small, unalterable portion of the boot code which searches the SD card for a particular filename and if found, calls the updater.

Apparently, the above scheme is not robust enough to update an inert lens, which is unfortunate. However, it is the reality we must all face.

So why are Panasonic able to do it this way? No computer and USB connection involved, just an SD card in the camera and so long as the camera battery is working and lens to camera connection is fine, everything is fine.

Sounds like you are comparing Apples with Oranges. There are any number of reasons why a functional body might not be able to update a bricked lens and those reasons are certainly not limited to Olympus.

Imagine you are a camera body and someone attaches a bricked lens to you. You look to your lens interface to inspect what kind of device is attached and find ..... Nothing! Now how in the world could you be expected to update the <nothing> which is attached to you? How would you know it is a <nothing> lens or a <nothing> teleconverter? How would you know what <nothing> model is attached?

If you are suggesting that Olympus MUST use the USB interface for updates, well that's just plan wrong. I don't believe that Olympus publishes the procedure, but there certainly is a workable one out there.

Expanding this requirement to include the further requirement of USB connection to computer working and computer software working seems to cause more of these bricks being produced.

Operator procedures are an area where manufacturers spend a great deal of time and effort trying to find the best compromise between a large number of conflicting variables.

In the case of Olympus, someone in product planning obviously decided it was a better choice not to require the user to go through the effort of locating the correct update version, copying the file to SD card, renaming the file, rebooting the camera, etc. In other words, keep it very simple for the user and add a layer of complexity to the update system's internals.

In the case of Panasonic, the planners apparently went another route. They chose to keep the internal process simple, and offload some of the complexity upon the user.

Either choice is quite reasonable, and yet each places a different amount of emphasis on user workload vs. process complexity.