A1ex do you own a 5D IV? If not would it help if we buy one for you (as used prices are really cheap nowadays)?
I don't, my latest camera is the 5D3.
However, as mentioned
here and in other threads, my main issue is not lack of hardware. I can barely find time to actually take pictures, and I have plenty of unfinished work with the equipment I've already got. Given this, a camera upgrade doesn't make much sense for me, even if it comes for free, sorry. It would be yet another "brick" to take care of.
If you need more 5D IV testers, let me know, then I can try to gather some more users on other forums.
I'm not exactly looking for "more" of them; there are already at least 3 very good ones, who were active lately. The bottleneck is on my side (i.e. providing test code for them to run, and interpreting the results). That's where enabling the boot flag can - in theory - help: it would allow others to start experimenting with the code and sharing findings on their own.
That would be the biggest time saver.
Why "in theory"? Any of you can already start experimenting with the code, just not on real hardware. Yes, it does require time and knowledge. I've tried to share
the latter, but can't help much with the former.
You mean this?
./run_canon_fw.sh 5D4,firmware=boot=1
...
[EOS] loading './5D4/ROM1.BIN' to 0xFC000000-0xFDFFFFFF
[MPU] FIXME: no MPU spells for 5D4.
[MPU] FIXME: no MPU button codes for 5D4.
Start address: 0xFC000008
Setting BOOTDISK flag to FFFFFFFF
...
BootLoad
CF Detect High
SLOT_A LOAD OK.
Open file for read : AUTOEXEC.BIN
File size : 0xCAA0
Now jump to AUTOEXEC.BIN!!
...
Ta Da!

This particular test (enabling the boot flag) is
a little more risky than all the others, because it will modify the ROM. So far all other models were OK (including 5DS, 7D2, 80D, 750D, 760D and also a 200D tested privately), but obviously that's not a guarantee. Of course, if anything goes wrong, I'll do my best to recover it, but that's not a guarantee either.
It would be unreasonable to force this test on somebody not prepared to take this risk, so I'm just waiting for a volunteer to come up. Whether that would happen today or in 5 years, for me it's the same. I've got plenty of other stuff to explore, either way.
Isn't it more interesting to invest in developing ML for EOS R?
Look
over here.
I'm investigating all these new models, with the goal of providing
a starting point for other developers. So far, this goal
was completed for 80D, but it doesn't look like they are making good use of it (unfortunately). I'm almost there with 5D4 (boot flag is the only thing missing), 200D/800D/77D/6D2 & M50 (all scheduled for holidays), and 7D2/5DS (need to sit down and debug them). The 750D/760D already have FIR files for enabling the boot flag, only some stubs missing to reach the same stage as 80D; these are straightforward, so they were intentionally left as an exercise for other users/developers. EOS R has to wait.
I'm not talking about a full ML port; I'm only considering a proof of concept that would allow anyone with basic coding skills to get started. For example, 80D owners
are already able to hardcode an intervalometer like this:
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
call("Release");
msleep(10000);
}
And, as you could see in the previous posts, saving raw Bayer data from LiveView is also straightforward.