David J Taylor wrote:

JohnS wrote:
As digital cameras are capable of firmware updates, I assume that
their basic program is stored in something akin to "flash ram". How
long does the program last in this memory before it starts getting
"soft" bits and becomes unreliable? Some rumours I've heard say 10
years. Does anyone have any authoritive info?
Thanks.

EEPROMs are fitted into many consumer equipments, and into most computers
today. I don't recall seeing any lifetime issues with these devices, at
least not when used mostly in read mode. It's not definitive, but see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read-on...EAROM_lifetime

Retention times for flash memory are typically given as 10-20 years, the
issue is that data is stored as charge on a capacitor and eventually that
capacitor discharges to a level at which ones and zeros become
indistinguishable. It may be longer or shorter though for particular
devices depending on the purpose for which the design was optimized.

For more specific information it's necessary to know the manufacturer and
part number on the chip.

--
--John
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(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)