They are so commonplace today that many people even have them in their cell phones; some companies have even added them to digital watches. Digital cameras are now taken for granted, but it was only in 1975 that the first prototype was produced.
Steve Sasson (b. 1950) had recently graduated in electrical engineering before taking a job with Kodak. His assignment was a broad one: Was it possible to make a camera using solid-state electronics? Starting from Scratch, he gathered together various pieces of electronic equipment including a movie camera lens, an analog-to-digital converter, and, most importantly, charge-coupled devices (CCDs).
By December 1975 Sasson's rough prototype was ready for initial testing. Weighing in at 8 pounds (3.6 kg) and the size of a toaster, the camera was hardly portable, but Sasson convinced a lab assistant to pose for a test shot. It took twenty-three seconds for the image to be recorded onto a cassette and then an additional twenty-three seconds to be read from the tape before appearing on a television screen.
Over the next year, Sasson and his colleagues presented his invention to Kodak officials. The response, however, was often less than encouraging. The employees of a company best known for making camera film were understandably perplexed at the notion of a camera that required no film. Why would anyone want to view their photos on a television? How could you store these digital images? Ultimately, the rapid increase in computer capabilities would solve these issues, but it was still many years before digital cameras started to replace traditional film.
