I understand that at one time there was a progam (may have been Thumber) that allowed complete external control of the 950. Supposedly Nikon put the kibosh on it by threatening a lawsuit. There was concern that messing around with the Nikon's I/O system would screw up the camera's firmware. It really seems odd to me that Nikon haven't themselves built this function into the 990's firmware as the 990 is used so extensively for macro photography.