US Patent 7585272 Electronic endoscope, and method for transferring programs

An electronic endoscope system which is largely composed of a scope and a processor. The processor includes a primary or patient's circuit and a secondary circuit which are so connected as to be able to communicate with each other for data transmission in an electrically insulated state. The secondary circuit on the side of the processor includes first MPU and first rewritable ROM which is connected with the first MPU through a first bus, a PC card slot connected to said first bus. In addition to data of picture images captured by an image sensor device mounted on a fore distal end portion of an insertion tube of a scope, a PC card stores a firmware version-up program to be executed for updating a firmware in the first ROM as soon as PC card is booted, starting from an address described in MBR of PC card. An update program of the firmware version-up program is transferred to and written into the first ROM at a high speed depending upon a clock speed of the first bus.