I think I killed my camera

My most favorite tried-to-replace-it-twice-but-kept-going-back-to-the-original Canon IXUS.

I finally experienced the famed E18 error. There's a vague chance I can bring it back from the dead using all the instructions around the net.

Otherwise I'm in a bind. The IXUS 300 and 500 I bought don't do as good a job with close up work as my original generation IXUS. And as a miniaturist, that's an important consideration. And the 500 seems to be suffering from the dreaded purple screen of death which, hopefully, Canon Australia will fix for free. Once I actually contact them about it...