UPDATE: For Veo Stingray drivers, try these first. In case they disappear… Stingray 300V (Win98/ME/2000/XP) and Stingray 323V (Win2k/XP only). The one sold by AllElectronics uses the 323V driver.
I picked up an old “Veo Stingray” camera from surplus dealer AllElectronics. These things are pretty junk by modern standards (320×240 resolution, unsightly rounded “looking through a tube” image), but it does have the variable (manual) focus I needed for an imaging project, and the price was right. As for drivers… the company that makes this thing seems to have evaporated, and the particular variant (USB product ID 808B) seems to have never been heard of by anyone, even though there are some identical cameras with slightly different internal hardware (and different Product ID) floating around. They all are (were?) manufactured by Xirlink.
This particular variant can be identifed by USB VID 0545 (Xirlink), Product ID 808B.
Here is a solution that might work (but see update above first): This camera and several IBM PC Cameras use the same or similar chipsets (Sunplus SPCA5xx)…with a small tweak, the IBM camera driver can also be tricked into supporting the ‘808B’ Stingray (maybe others?) by adding its VID/PID to the driver .INF file. Kinda like slipping your cuckoo egg into another nest.
This file includes the IBM driver and tweaked .INF. The following devices are supported:
%XIRLINK.DeviceDesc%=Xirlink.Device,USB\VID_0545&PID_8002
%XIRLINK.DeviceDesc%=Xirlink.Device,USB\VID_0545&PID_8080
%XIRLINK.DeviceDesc%=Xirlink.Device,USB\VID_0545&PID_8009
%XIRLINK.DeviceDesc%=Xirlink.Device,USB\VID_0545&PID_808B
To install, follow the README.TXT included.
Win2K/XP Driver for Veo Stingray (808B) and IBM V5000
Linux?
It looks like several open-source driver projects may support the Veo Stingray, IBM PC Cameras and similar SPCA50xx variants (not to mention the classic Dakota Digitals). Note, if your exact ID is not listed as supported, you may be able to get it working with a tweak similar to the above. Have a look at:
http://xirlinkwebcam.sourceforge.net/
http://www.linux-usb.org/ibmcam/ (older project)
In addition, the package ‘gspca’ may work for these and many other SPCAxxx-based (and other!) webcams. See here for the gspca/spca5xx project and a list of supported cameras.
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