Memory cards

By dint of collecting digital cameras
We end up with a nice package of memory cards. 😂

CompactFlash, SD, MMC, Stick, PCMCIA, ATA Card, SmartCard, microdrive XQD etc...

Memory cards 2022 by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

You've got a greater range than I've had to cope with. Most of my cameras take SD cards, but I have one needing memory stickPro, and had a fairly early one needing CF.
My very first digital cameras didn't have removable memory at all, just 1kb or so of flash memory internally.

I do still have a PCMCIA card here at work, used for storing methods on an instrument. When we got the instrument the manufacturer offered us a 8kb card for something over £200. A quick check online found a sandisk 32mb one for £40 - tracking down one as small as offered was difficult but it's quite capable of using the larger card, so their mark up seemed rather excessive to me.

Hi! Thank you very much for your feedback

For example, for my first CF
Nikon CompactFlash 10MB from SanDisk
paid $180.00 CAD in 1998

There’s nothing more satisfying in tech terms than thinking back to what memory used to cost…

I can remember my first digital camera, a Canon IXUS V in 2002, came with an 8mb CF card in the box, which was considered stingy even then. I saved and bought a comparatively massive 64mb card to replace it, which was more than enough for a day’s snapping back on that 2.1mp camera (especially as the battery never lasted long). These days, a bog standard iphone comes with around 2,000 times that storage..

Yes you are right, you have to appreciate, the prices of affordable cards these days

For example, in 1998 the 4mb Flashcards cost $ 156.50 CAD
and the 40mb over $ 1,129.00 CAD

SanDisk Flashdisk PCMCIA 01/2023 ( Total 30 ) by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

The images you posted are great by itself:-)

Memory demand grows really fast. One single RAW shot with my Z9 is more filesize than my first harddisk which was 40MB.

Just to add context, here’s a picture I took at the computing museum at Bletchley Park (UK) a couple of years ago.

The disk on the left is from 1965 and stored a whopping 8mb - although it had to record on both sides to manage that. It’s every bit as big as it looks (the machines it leant against were roughly the size of washing machines).

I dread to think what any of this stuff cost at the time…

For every photo taken with your Z9, you would have spent over $800.00 to be able to save it to a memory card in 1998

Thanks for sharing, it really was a different time 👍🏻

I have here a photograph of myself in 1979, it does not make me any younger!
Changing discs for my first animated film made at the NFB (NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA)

disk drive by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

PDP-11/34 with 124,000 words of memory
And The disk unit of a DEC RK611 model with a single drive for a removable cartridge with a capacity of 7 million words.

ONF by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

👍🏻

Wow, amazing pics - were you really creating/storing animations on computer, at that time?

I forgot to mention, that 1965 disk in my picture wouldn’t actually have been big enough to store the picture I took of it! And that’s talking jpeg, let alone RAW, which my XP2 also saved for me at the time…

Yes, it was the beginning of computer animation, we were looked at as aliens at that time 😄

We are lucky to have extraordinary technology today, it's good to remember that once in a while 😇

Wow, awesome post! Who could tell those days that future cameras with less than 24mp would be considered kind of “low resolution” and cards with 32GB not enough storage space 😂

And we are lucky having a glimpse of how scientific and technological advances will shape our future. Think of how far AF has progressed for example. And optic correction for lenses.

Exactly

Or to the storage unit of the first DSLR

Kodak DCS 100 Pro Digital Camera (1991) by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

Kodak DCS 100 (1991), the very first DSLR! 1.3MP (1280x1024)
Price between: $20,000 and $30,000 USD (with a multiplication factor of 1.8)

Kodak marketed the Kodak DCS system in 1991
The system consists of a Nikon F3 HP with a digital back.
Captured photos are stored in a storage unit (DSU)
A total of 987 units divided into six models were sold between 1991 and 1994

Interestingly, at the very beginning when the first memory cards arrived.
The designers of the first Fujix DS / Nikon E cameras simply created a hinged back similar to film cameras.

Fujix DS-515 by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

Fujix DS-515 by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

In the beginning the PCMCIA ATA card was much too expensive.

PCMCIA card ATA by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

Fortunately there was an alternative, PCMCIA Hard Drive ATA Card Type III
More fragile but much less expensive.

PCMCIA Hard Drive ATA Card Type III by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

Here the Kodak AP NC 2000 Pro 1.28 MP (1268x1012)
$18,000.00 USD ISO 200-1600
The first Kodak DSLR with a removable hard drive

Kodak AP NC 2000 Pro by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr