• Members 392 posts
    April 12, 2023, 4:06 p.m.

    Hi,

    I began with Kodak Digital when I was at IBM in 1983. Or was it 1984? No matter.

    We wanted a vision system on circuit board production lines. Take a shot of a perfect board and store it. Then, shoot every board that came down the line and compare it. Not so perfect boards could be shunted to a repair line. This would be better than technicians using the Mark-I Eyeball.

    Kodak had the sensors. They came into our conference room at IBM toting a Canon F1 camera and a tin box hooked to it via a cable. Guess what that did? Yep. It was a CCD demonstrator. They sold that to the DoD as well.

    Sold us, for sure. We bought our first six sensors - that being the number needed to form a mosaic shot of the size board we first wanted to use this newfangled vision system for. I had the job of making the cameras using those CCDs.

    It worked. And, it worked well. Far better than we had planned on. Used some code written on a mainframe to put it all together.

    Later, Kodak wanted to make this idea a commercial unit, rather than for the DoD only. By then, they were using a Nikon F3 and they could use some help from IBM with a better storage unit. That led us to make a smaller hard drive. Then Kodak downsized the camera such that the storage unit was integrated. And IBM developed the microdrive. I always saw the irony there since IBMs storage division was in Rochester MN and Kodak was in Rochester NY. :)

    By the time 2000 rolled around, I was with Ericsson and Kodak had made about a zillion different models of DCS. Just look at the collection Marc has. All sorts of bodies, resolutions, visible light, UV, IR, color, monochrome and probably more than that. Even a digital Nikonos.

    And, I ran into Phil Askey at a racetrack and wound up joining his DPreview and ran smack dab into all these Kodak guys I hadn't heard from in over a decade. All gone somewhere else these days. Haven't heard from any of them in many years now.

    I still have a DCS 520c hanging on a Leica microscope and a DCS 760c on a copy stand with several macro lenses. These are used to document failed electronics, mostly circuit boards. And there I am., Right back to taking digital images of circuit boards. With Kodak sensors.

    My normal use cameras these days are a Nikon Df and a Pentax 645D medium format. 16 MP and 40 MP. And the 645D? A Kodak CCD. ;)

    There was a time, until I got the DF, where I also had a DCS 660m and a DCS 720x and a Pro Back Plus (16 MP) on a Contax 645 - along side the 520c and 760c. But, the 16MP Df replaced all of them for normal use. Then, I needed more resolution for this Lighthouse series I have been doing and so the 645D was a low cost way to do that. With a Kodak CCD once again.

    Stan

  • Members 1555 posts
    April 12, 2023, 4:57 p.m.

    Excellent initiative, it is very interesting and important to read the story of the people who contributed to the emergence of digital photography. 👍🏻

  • Members 392 posts
    April 12, 2023, 6:26 p.m.

    Hi,

    Most of the Kodak history is in the document stored on Jarle's NikonWeb site. Which I made another thread regarding. It really all came about for the Federal Sector and IBM was also doing a lot of that work as well.

    What is nice about Federal Sector work is they foot the R+D bill to get what they need, and then that can be leveraged over into the Industrial Sector. And, eventually, the Consumer Sector. Which is exactly what happened with Personal Computers, Cell and Smart Phones and - Digital Photography. Happily for us all.

    Stan

  • Members 392 posts
    April 12, 2023, 6:30 p.m.

    Hi,

    One thing I neglected to mention is Surface Mount components. Those were new then and had a tendency to wind up mismounted by the robots placing them into the solder paste. See, the boards run into a long oven to slowly heat them up, melt the solder and then cool it all back down.

    It is difficult for the Mark-I eyeball to see all the misplaced parts. But not difficult for machine vision. Once you have machine vision that is!

    Stan

  • Members 52 posts
    April 12, 2023, 6:46 p.m.

    That's amazing, was that demonstrator the original EO Camera or something newer?

    Is there any chance of that hardware being alive today?

  • Members 392 posts
    April 12, 2023, 9:17 p.m.

    Hi,

    Wow. That's too far for my Way Back machine to recall. All I do recall is it was a Canon F1 with a cord to a plain box. They had a PC with them to show us....us! ;)

    If any such exists, it'd be Jim McGarvey who has it. Not me. I didn't get my own Kodak DSLR until I picked up a IBM surplus 460m with a color wheel from our internal product photo dept.

    Stan

  • Members 52 posts
    April 12, 2023, 11:38 p.m.

    Jim has been very enthusiastic about the DCS history, could be really cool to have him around the forums.

    I talked with him about 5 years ago when I was starting my DCS project but only for a few months, do you know if someone has contact with him to thrown him an invite to the site?

  • Members 392 posts
    April 13, 2023, 12:51 a.m.

    Hi,

    I haven't chatted with him since we were regularly posting on Jarle's NikonWeb site. Which is seeing a little bit of a resurgence lately as well. Same story with Jay Kelbley.

    Stan