Corp Dino KODAK -Crushed by Digital Revolution- Invented the Digital Camera Themselves 38 yrs Ago...

Reaganite Republican ^ | 03 May 2013 | Reaganite Republican

[Reaganite Republican]

An Eastman Kodak engineer named Steve Sasson invented the first digital camera back in 1975...

In a Kodak blog post written in 2007, Sasson explains how it was constructed:

It had a lens that we took from a used parts bin from the Super 8 movie camera production line downstairs from our little lab on the second floor in Bldg 4. On the side of our portable contraption, we shoehorned in a portable digital cassette instrumentation recorder. Add to that 16 nickel cadmium batteries, a highly temperamental new type of CCD imaging area array, an a/d converter implementation stolen from a digital voltmeter application, several dozen digital and analog circuits all wired together on approximately half a dozen circuit boards, and you have our interpretation of what a portable all electronic still camera might look like.

Here are some specs: The 8 pound camera recorded 0.01 megapixel black and white photos to a cassette tape. The first photograph took 23 seconds to create...

To play back images, data was read from the tape and then displayed on a television set:

[pics]

 Alas, much like the stale suits at 'Big Blue' IBM failed to grasp the monumental significance/value of the initial Windows OS presented to them by Bill Gates, Rochester NY-based Eastman Kodak didn't seem to see the business potential -nor threat to their cash cow film business- in their own R+D department's invention... today they are bankrupt, a mere shell of the former blue-chip enterprise that all but controlled the consumer photography business in the US and many other countries.

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NYT    Doug Ross

[Reaganite Republican]

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[leprechaun9]

The CCD, the key element in the first Digital camera was invented in 1969 at Bell Telephone Laboratories by Willard Boyle and George Smith. They received a Nobel Prize for this invention in 2009 (40 years later).

A video was produced in 1975 with presentations by the inventors explaining the device. The video can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Za3FY1axI.

It was a very exciting time to work there. Other major inventions include HALOGRAMs, TELSTAR (first active communications satellite), and many more.

[NewHampshireDuo]

In the late ‘90s I purchased a Kodak microscopy camera. It wasn’t cheap. Came with a driver for Win98. They never supported it beyond Win98 and within a year I had an obsolete camera. Never purchased another Kodak product again.

[Vaquero]

We must protect the buggy whip industry at all costs!

[Dr. Sivana]

Alas, much like the stale suits at 'Big Blue' IBM failed to grasp the monumental significance/value of the initial Windows OS presented to them by Bill Gates,

That's not how it went. Windows 1.0 was simply a GUI on top of DOS, and wasn't capable of much, but IBM knew that a real OS with a GUI shell would be necessary, which is why OS/2 with Presentation Manager was worked on long before a serious version of Windows would be released. IBM's mistake was working with Microsoft on it, allowing MS to parlay the OS/2 work into Windows NT, leaving IBM with a high-priced 16 bit OS2 addressing a 32 bit processor (80386) and bus (MCA). MS even had a lot of the OS2 related patents, and had a license to sell MS labeled versions of early OS2 even after useful versions of Windows came out. By the time IBM marshalled the resources to rework the product into OS2/Warp, it was too late.

The real story is more complex, but the original Windows had nothing there to get worked up about, and decent GUIs were being prepped by folks other than MS (Apple, GEM, Amiga/Commodore, XWin). MS was the one who got the market timing and compatibility right.

[BfloGuy]

much like the stale suits at 'Big Blue' IBM failed to grasp the monumental significance/value of the initial Windows OS

True, but IBM recovered. Kodak hasn't.

[Vaquero]

and the buggy whip phenomenon has not stopped at industry...

....it is foremost in Government too

[SampleMan]

Sears is another company that failed to embrace opportunity. It was positioned to change an already large mail order business and trusted name into an Amazon type model, but instead, they fixated on being America’s mall anchor store. Young people today have no idea what a Sears catalogue even was.

[rlmorel]

I was one of the first people to have a digital camera...the first one I had was an Apple camera we bought for work, that I would take to parties with a laptop (I had to practice with it you know...:) and people thought it was great...to see the party pictures before you leave...better than Polaroid!

Then I bought a Kodak DC-50, and I took a lot of pictures with that. Sadly, I had a computer malfunction and lost many of them. Since then, I have made sure I have things backed up correctly, so that won’t happen again.

I will say this for Kodak-even though they used a stupid proprietary format, and the images were a bit oversaturated, they generally had the color balance right.

[Vaquero]

back in the 80s when they stopped selling guns, Sears started the long downhill spiral.

their tools are the only thing that kept them afloat this long, IMHO.

[Alas Babylon!]

And most importantly, UNIX!

[Steely Tom]

It was a very exciting time to work there. Other major inventions include HALOGRAMs, TELSTAR (first active communications satellite), and many more.

Do you think Bell Labs benefited from the UK "Brain Drain?"

[Roccus]

It was a very exciting time to work there.

I'm sure it was. Bell Labs was one of the reasons I chose to go ABI/ATTIS at divesture. Bad choice and even sadder outcome for what was once a world leader.

[SampleMan]

Just think of the position Sears was in to take over Internet sales. They were a huge money cow, that could have easily made massive investments early and their name would have drawn more people to Internet commerce right from the start. People could have ordered products to their home or to the local store for pickup.

They could have tapered off their brick and mortar ops, as they ramped up their Internet sales. It would have been like the 1890s all over again for them.

My guess is that their board of directors and CEO were all old-school retail and finance people who looked down their noses at the Internet as a minor competitor that they would eventually get around to incorporating in their business model IF it proved viable.

[Rummyfan]

Kodak did invent the digital camera but failed to see the future of photography and follow though.

[RayChuang88]

Kodak should have been at the very forefront of the digital imaging revolution. If they had played their cards right, the image sensor on the iPhone 5 in 2013 would be made by Kodak, not Sony.

[Rummyfan]

LOL!

[FAA]

“Young people today have no idea what a Sears catalogue even was.”

I suppose I’m of the sorta younger set here at FR but I do remember the Sears catalog. Even remember the J.C. Penney and Montgomery Ward catalog. For some reason I remember liking the Ward’s catalog better than the others, don’t know why though. My mom collected “old” things and one of the items we still have of hers was a late 1890s Sears catalog. Hard to believe that they sold kit housing and wagons out of a mail order catalog these days.

“their tools are the only thing that kept them afloat this long, IMHO.”

It seems that Craftsman is just about the only thing that has kept Sears name in the news lately. I highly suspect that that line will be bought up by one of the big retailers (Lowes, Home Depot, etc) when Sears goes belly-up. Sears really isn’t known for anything else anymore.

[Vaquero]

you can buy Craftsman tools at Ace hardware stores now.

another company sears USED TO own was Allstate.

they are making money, Hurricanes and Tornados not withstanding...
but they sold one of their most reliable moneymakers.

Sears makes one bad move after another...