Well, to cut to the chase and not bury the lede, I believe CHDK 1.6.1 is now running on my sx210. Hooray! The rest of this post is post-mortem and question responses ("answers" might be too strong).
So when last we left things, a file (?module?) "lua.flt" was missing indicating some sort of incomplete setup. No idea what happened there. In an effort to fix things I mounted the SD card on Windows (10-22H2) and proceeded to dance with various setup programs. STICK seemed to want to format my FAT32 drive, despite it already being set up, so I ran CHIMP (0.9.5) instead. As before, CHIMP claimed "No camera software detected!". I mean really, now, what the hell was it looking for, and why couldn't it mention that? Specifically...like what file name (if it's a missing file), using what path? CHIMP has its own directory tree structure so I ended up copying the CHDK 1.6.1 zip file to *every* *directory* in the CHIMP tree structure, to no avail. At some point I started getting runtime error messages (attached, maybe) to the effect of
"Object reference is not to an instance of an object." I *do* understand what that means, but I have no idea how to recover. Fortunately there's no need. Somebody (maybe CHIMP, maybe STICK) was able to make the SD card bootable and apparently just unzipping to the card is all that's required. I can, at least, do that.
After wrestling with STICK and CHIMP (for which I really am grateful, despite appearances) and copying files manually, plus verifying "lua.flt" actually got copied, I dismounted the SD card, threw the WP switch, and put it in my camera. Powered up the sx210 and after many, many microseconds came the CHDK splash screen.
I realize now that what I had called the "CHDK menu" was really just the <ALT> shortcut menu. Fuzzy Noobie thinking.
At one point I was trying to hit <ALT>, which as noted was actually the Video record button (but which really should, to us beginners, be called "The button with the red dot"). Trouble is, I never just "hit" the Video button -- I pressed it and held it down. No menu -- instead the camera started Video recording. This is a feature, right? Allows for a momentary press to bring up the shortcut menu, but still allow for video recording? Or am I missing something?
To hash over an old topic:
exFAT is the standard for SDXC cards, which were standardized in 2009. Cameras that support SDXC (as SX210 does https://www.usa.canon.com/support/p/powershot-sx210-is) must support exFAT, and when formatted a card will default to exFAT for cards larger than 32 GB.
Ah. All of this is news to me. Actually, unexpected good news. I stand corrected.
It wasn't obvious how to actually snap a picture. During my futzing with CHDK the lens was closed and retracted. It wasn't possible to take a picture and see if my setup was actually working the way I had envisioned.
Half pressing the shutter outside of alt mode should switch to shooting mode.
OK. This is going to require some learning on my part. I am not used to half-pressing the shutter and, as noted elsewhere, I have fat fingers and my camera has tiny buttons. Nothing to be done there beyond trying.
If I leave CHDK and go back to Canon (but not restarting the camera!) I get a message about the card WP switch. So, if I'm running CHDK I can't use the standard camera features
What do you mean by "leave CHDK"?
If CHDK starts (you see the CHDK logo splash screen), then CHDK is running until you turn off the camera.
CHDK "alt" mode allows you to access CHDK settings and run scripts. You access alt mode by pressing the CHDK "alt" button, which on your camera probably defaults to the video record button. You leave alt mode by pressing the alt key again. Any CHDK settings that affect shooting etc will still be applied.
Right, of course. What I meant by "leave CHDK" was "leave the <ALT> shortcut menu". Just another Noob-err, I kinda get it now.
The good news, really part of getting CHDK running, is that I was able to actually take a RAW format picture (!). I copied the file to my PC and fed it to GIMP, the free GNU Photoshop-like picture editor (he said, blithely-ignorantly). When GIMP opened the file a whole lot of magic happened, and somehow a Raw Therapee GIMP plugin appeared, and the "RAW" file showed up in its own window. Utterly amazing. I guess I'm easily impressed, or maybe it was just such a pleasant experience after fighting so much with other software.
One thing I noticed is that the RAW picture was somewhat curved near the edges. This is expected right? It's an artifact of the lens, no? Evidently this is fixed by the camera when it converts to jpeg. Well, that's grist for another day. CHDK seems to be working and that's enough for a long weekend. Once again, thanks for all the help and patience.
