How to get photos off of your Quicktake 100. A guide for Mac users.
- Introduction
- Step 1 - Purchase your materials
- Step 2 - Configure Windows XP for VirtualBox
- Step 3 - Install Windows XP
- Step 4 - Install QuickTake software and serial drivers
- Step 5 - Connect your Camera
- Useful Links
- References
This guide is comprised of different tips I've picked up over the past several, infuriating weeks trying to get photos off of my QuickTake 100. I could not find a comprehensive, start to finish guide that explains all the steps in detail, so that is what I'm going to attempt to do in this repository here.
For simplicity's sake, I've included all the relevant QuickTake software you'll need along with the driver's you'll need in order to configure the software to work within VirtualBox.
Big shoutout to Dustin who provided me with info about a serial-USB adapter that actually worked with this camera (I had gone through 2 of these with no success). Without his help I likely would have gone through 2 or 3 more of these.
These cables are guaranteed to work, and you should be able to purchase them directly assuming these links are still active. For posterity, I've also included screenshots from Amazon/eBay where appropriate.
There are many cables out there, but this is the only one that worked for me. Here's a link to purchase the adapter on Amazon
This one is generally more difficult to track down, but I was able to find this one on eBay that was counterinutively cheaper than the DB9 to USB adapter. Some other folks were suggesting that I should build my own or acquire an OEM Apple Newton adapter, however that was not necessary in my case. You can also find this on this seller's own store pccables.com
I used VirtualBox for this tutorial because it's free and relatively easy to use. I did also have success with VMWare Fusion, but I don't believe there's much additional value I got out of using that software.
Conveniently, this is relatively easy to find. Follow this link on archive.org to download a copy, there should also be a serial key on this page. Take note of this as you will need it later.
This should be self-explanatory. For clarity, I'm using VirtualBox version 6.1. You can find the download link here
Using the .iso image you downloaded earlier, create a VM in Virtualbox. This is a relatively simple process, but I've broken it down to make it more clear what settings were used.
After you do this, you can basically just click through and use the default options for the virtual disk and all the other settings.
Select your VM, click on the Settings gear icon, and then navigate to the Storage tab in the popup window. Click on the little disk icon and then select Choose a disk file. From this dialog, select the Windows XP .iso image.
While still in the Settings menu for the VM, select the Ports tab and additionally select the USB option. Once you plugin the adapter and click the add button, you should see a device with something like FTDI FT232R USB UART. This is your USB adapter.
Now that you've configured your VirtualBox VM, you'll want to configure Windows XP and install all the correct software.
Select your new VM, then click the Start button. You should see a new Window pop up. You should immediately boot into the Windows XP setup. Follow the prompts and configure the default options.
After the machine restarts, you will be prompted to register your name and enter your license key. Use the one included in the archive.org link shared earlier.
Click through the on-screen prompts and configure an Administrator password. Once everything's done, you should have a working Windows XP box. The machine will restart and you'll do some additional form filling etc. You may want to detach the virtual CD ROM you set up in Step 2 as it is no longer needed.
Now that you have Windows XP set up, it's time to install all the correct software.
NOTE: In order to complete this step appropriately, you will need to configure VirtualBox Guest Additions. See this page for more information.
Enable drag and drop on the Windows XP VM by selecting Devices > Drag and Drop > Bidirectional. After this simply download the QuickTake software included in this repo and drag it over to the Desktop in your Windows XP VM.
Remember, this will only work if VirtualBox Guest Additions is already installed. All you have to do to install this is mount the Guest Additions .iso and complete the installation steps. Instructions are here
Double click on the zipped file, click "Extract all files". Double-click on the "Setup" executable in the newly extracted folder, you should be presented with this glorious 90s setup wizard.
Once the instlall is completed you should see your QuickTake software in the program list.
There's an executable for these in this repo. But if you'd rather download directly from the manufacturer you can find that here. Drag and drop to the Desktop just like you did before.
Double click on the driver setup, you should see it complete almost immediately.
Push in the slider on the side of the camera which should expose the 8-pin DIN connector.
You'll use this to test the camera's connectivity. Set the "Baud Rate" to "9600".
Open the slider near the front of the lens to turn the camera on. You should see a spinning rectangle on the display which indicates the camera is ready to sync to the computer.
Be aware that serial connectivity uses a lot of battery. Use the DC jack or make sure you have rechargeable AA batteries with a decent amount of charge.
Select the COM port that says "High Speed Serial Port" (this was COM3 in my case). Then click "Test". If connectivity is successful you should see this pop-up dialog.
Select Camera > View All Slides in Camera. You should see all the images as thumbnails that you can download.
Select an image of your choice then click File > Save As. I typically recommend exporting as .tif as this is a high quality format compatible with most image editing software.
You can also download all of these using Camera > Move All Camera Images to Disk, but I'd recommend just selecting them manually and clicking Save As as it allows you to choose a "normal" image format more easily.
Downloading is extremely slow, so this is another reason not to do this all at once.
Drag and drop the image that you've downloaded to the Windows XP VM to a folder of your choice. Congratulations you've successfully gotten images off of your QuickTake 100!!
Gotta say I was pleasantly surprised by the "High Resolution" mode. Definitely not a lot of pixels, but produces a half-decent image.
Some other links that may be helpful to you.
Below are a few pages that were of immense use to me while figuring this out.