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October 12, 2005
[ FATHER OF THE DIGICAM PAYS A VISIT ]
Steve Sasson with a mockup of the world's first digicam -- the 0.01 megapixel Kodak prototype.
STEVE SASSON, the man who made the world's first digital camera in Kodak's Rochester laboratories, was in town last week to boost the launch of the company's new Wi Fi camera, the EasyShare-one.
It is almost exactly 30 years ago, in December 1975, that Sasson displayed the first picture from a digital imaging device on a black and white TV screen.
We will put Sasson's full account of the development of digital imaging here in the next few days, but what really hit home to us was the attitude of Kodak to R and D. It is impossible to imagine any Australian company kick-starting an expensive research and development project that everyone involved knew would take at least 20 years to become a profit making commercial product. And, of course, there was no guarantee that it would ever work.
The sad part of the story is how the silver halide chemists cooperated in developing digital imaging without ever fully realising that they were working themselves out of a job.
More in the next few days ...
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Posted by terry at October 12, 2005 04:04 PM
