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A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

bbc.com

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Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#41

Post by syncsynchalt »

Sharlin wrote: post #9

A very similar PetaPixel article with a couple more technical details: [1] In particular, it describes the reason for the first corrupted image – they had wired the four-bit output in the wrong order so that the high bit was the lowest and vice versa. Thus, all-ones still looked white and all-zeros black, but the rest of the shades were scrambled. [1] https://petapixel.com/how-steve-sasson-invented-the-digital-...

It's a shame they didn't capture that first image. You'd think someone would have had a camera handy!

I was glad to hear Sasson found a place at Eastman-Kodak and worked there for the rest of his career.

Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#42

Post by syncsynchalt »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #7

Amazing, a whole article about a camera without a single photo from that camera

The PetaPixel article has a sample, though the original photo from this article is lost.

https://petapixel.com/how-steve-sasson-invented-the-digital-...

https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2022/09/Prorotype-Digit...

Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#43

Post by syncsynchalt »

Sharlin wrote: post #8
contrarian1234 wrote: post #7

Amazing, a whole article about a camera without a single photo from that camera

I wonder if any exist on the internet and if the camera is still functional. Edit: it's very likely that no photos exist because the tapes were being reused and there are many reasons why the camera has been nonfunctional for a long time now.

Here's an example image: https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2022/09/Prorotype-Digit...

Captured on Kodak film, I suspect.

Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#44

Post by syncsynchalt »

dotancohen wrote: post #39
OgsyedIE wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you first come to use a five digit variation of the Gregorian calendar?

Kraken often had very informative posts, but I often feel that he invests in such posts only to promote his five-digit ideology. That's fine by me. The informative posts are worth it.

This is my first time noticing one of their posts, but to me it evokes the ideals of the Long Now Foundation, putting our thoughts in a future-forward stance.

Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#45

Post by immibis »

ronsor wrote: post #28
WangComputers wrote: post #17

Very few people understand the real reason why Kodak failed to dominate the digital world. It actually dates back to a 300 million dollar lawsuit which Honeywell won against Minolta over a patent for an autofocus system. The Japanese camera companies were so outraged over this perceived injustice that they vowed never to engage in technology sharing with American companies ever again and this ended up crippling Kodak…

> they vowed never to engage in technology sharing with American companies ever again If this were really the case, I'm surprised the US government didn't engage in antitrust action.

Very US-centric comment. The US can't force entities of an entirely separate country to share technology.

Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#46

Post by qingcharles »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #35
kragen wrote: post #27

The popular notion that "Kodak invented the thing that killed them" is basically nonsense. Steve Sasson's tale of technical struggle in 01975 at Kodak is real, but dozens of other people were doing the same thing at the same time at different companies, or in their dormitories, because at that point the problem of building a handheld digital camera had been reduced to a problem that one guy could solve with off-the-s…

How did you first come to use a five digit variation of the Gregorian calendar?

https://longnow.org/ideas/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-an...

Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#47

Post by qingcharles »

kragen wrote: post #27

The popular notion that "Kodak invented the thing that killed them" is basically nonsense. Steve Sasson's tale of technical struggle in 01975 at Kodak is real, but dozens of other people were doing the same thing at the same time at different companies, or in their dormitories, because at that point the problem of building a handheld digital camera had been reduced to a problem that one guy could solve with off-the-s…

It's interesting that you differentiate between analog and digital electronic cameras.

My first "digital" camera was one of the Canon Ion ones that use floppy discs but actually record the photos in analog, so technically just an "electronic camera", but was marketed as a "Still Video Camera" (!). You had to use a video capture card to get the images into the PC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Floppy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G_1uy_7B5w

Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#48

Post by qingcharles »

andai wrote: post #21

>"But Joy had followed me back because she was curious, you know, and she was standing in the hallway. We turned around, and Joy says: 'Needs work,' and turned out and walked away." This part reminded me of the Black Triangle (2004): https://archive.ph/qqOnP https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=698753

I really like this, thank you.

Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#49

Post by kragen »

andai wrote: post #21

>"But Joy had followed me back because she was curious, you know, and she was standing in the hallway. We turned around, and Joy says: 'Needs work,' and turned out and walked away." This part reminded me of the Black Triangle (2004): https://archive.ph/qqOnP https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=698753

Alternative archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20130927070227/http://rampantgam...

Re: A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera

#50

Post by kragen »

dotancohen wrote: post #39
OgsyedIE wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you first come to use a five digit variation of the Gregorian calendar?

Kraken often had very informative posts, but I often feel that he invests in such posts only to promote his five-digit ideology. That's fine by me. The informative posts are worth it.

Thanks!
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