Thanks to Codeye I figured out why many of the 901's do not have working cameras under os x.
There seems to have been more than one revision of the 901 (I actually think there I've detected three at this point). My 901 originally came with a camer from Gensys Logic Inc. No drivers available. Webcam and Webcam-X do not work with it. Mind you others have a camera that works, it's from Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd. The cameras should swap out, and what's more the 900 uses a Chicony camera, and it uses about the same case. I figured I could use this camera in my 901 and it might work under os x. I found an upper case with a camera in it for about $30 on e-bay.
And I pop it open.
And I look at the camera inside the case
Now I notice something right away. The Connector is on the left. On my 901 it's on the right. I then look at the bezel for the 900 and I notice that the hole left for the light to show it's working is on the left instead of right like the 901 too. The connector is the same, and I know it's usb. Perhaps it converts the image 180 degrees on the mother board or something, or by some signal from the wiring. What the heck. Lets pop the 901 camera that does not work with os x and see what they look like…
It's a dead on match for size, hole position, led position and everything for that matter.
I don't even have to open the 901 case all the way to get the camera out, so I stick the 900 camera in. Easy to do. It all lines up.
A perfect fit, just upside down from what it was in the 900.
now to boot and test.
It works, the light lines up, the camera works on the first try, and yes, you see that right the image is upside down ….
There is room to move the harness (I think and I should be able to re-mount it the other way when I get into the case again. As soon as I track down my soldering iron (I just moved, it's in a box somewhere) I'm going to put in a touch screen and antennas for the 3g mod I've been wanting to do. While I'm in there, I might as well fix it all.
-GReg
The topsy-turvy hardware hacker.
