[cpia] IntelPlay QX3 problems

[Sam Hart]

I actually sent this information to Peter.Pregler@risc.uni-linz.ac.at, but
I have some new information and I figured posting to this list would
probably be a Good Idea(tm) as well...

I have an IntelPlay QX3 microscope that I am trying to get running under
Linux. The camera seems to work fine (I can view the feed in xawtv) but I
also need to be able to use the lamps on the device. When I run
cpia-control 0.3.3 (which is supposed to support the IntelPlay QX3) I get
the following error:

Ooops: probably you got a floating exception. If the error below
       is about a 'float() literal too large' you have encountered a
       python-gtk bug. Either upgrade to version 0.6.3 or greater or
       unset the locale settings (environment variables LANG and LC_*)
       and restart the application. In any other case please send me
       a bug report.

empty string for float()

The relevent packages I have installed are:
python-1.5.2-35
pygtk-0.6.8-3
pygtk-libglade-0.6.8-3
python-devel-1.5.2-35
pygnome-1.4.1-3
gtk+-1.2.10-11
gtk+-devel-1.2.10-11

I originally tried this on a Red Hat 7.2 machine (at work, where I am
trying to set this up) with Kernel 2.4.7, but I have also verified that I
get the exact same error on my Debian machine at home (with Kernels 2.4.9
& 2.4.12).

It looks like from the code the app is just writing data to
/proc/cpia/video0 , but when I try to do the same from the command prompt,
I get no change in any of the states for the QX3.

Is there any advice anyone can give me what I should be doing? We are
looking to replace a buggy Win95 machine in a undergrad Physics lab with a
Linux box, but we need some sort of reasonable way to control/use this QX3
there.

Thx in advance.

--
Sam Hart
University/Work addr. <hart@physics.arizona.edu>
Personal addr. <criswell@geekcomix.com>