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Even amongst more technically minded folk, there were some having difficulty accepting that the technical challenges facing digital photography would, in fact,

Even amongst more technically minded folk, there were some having difficulty accepting that the technical challenges facing digital photography would, in fact, be overcome. Here's quite an interesting thread from rec.photo, Dec 1990 onwards, discussing just that. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.photo/ZnqcQVzAln0 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.photo/ZnqcQVzAln...

arethuza 10y ago
"No doubt, my recent $8000 35mm camera investment was a safe one." Ouch!
- PostOnce 10y ago
  They're right, it was 1990. The first DSLR didn't come out for 5 years, and it was less than 2 megapixels. The Nikon D1 didn't come out until 1999, so nine years later, for $6000, for a 2.75mp camera. Did that even compete with film? Can you put that on the cover of a magazine at under 3 megapixels? So yeah, it was a safe investment in 1990.
CapitalistCartr 10y ago
"Right now, 1 Megabyte of memory costs about $45 retail. This will not drop by an order of magnitude in the next decade without a breakthrough, or an economical Gallium-Arsenide process to replace Silicon." I love this line. Even in 1990 people didn't believe Moore's Law.
- zymhan 10y ago
  And yet we still have people who don't think Moore's law will cause us to reach the end of MOSFET at some point.
- fanf2 10y ago
  1990 was weird for memory prices because they were just recovering from memory shortages and price hikes. See this chart http://www.jcmit.com/mem2015.htm http://www.jcmit.com/mem2015.htm and this newspaper article from the time http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/25/business/shortage-of-chips-is-easing.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/25/business/shortage-of-chips...
8_hours_ago 10y ago
There's a lot of good gems in there: "Right now, 1 Megabyte of memory costs about $45 retail. This will not drop by an order of magnitude in the next decade without a breakthrough, or an economical Gallium-Arsenide process to replace Silicon." "It's much easier to pass a stack of prints among a group of people than to set up a viewing session on the TV." It makes you wonder what new technologies we dismiss today will actually start a revolution. Of course, not everyone was wrong about the future of digital film; this guy was spot on: "In my opinion, the popularity of electronic camera is dependant upon the popularity of computers. If this so call multimedia become a reality, then more people may want electronic cameras."

arethuza 10y ago

"No doubt, my recent $8000 35mm camera investment was a safe one." Ouch!

PostOnce 10y ago
They're right, it was 1990. The first DSLR didn't come out for 5 years, and it was less than 2 megapixels. The Nikon D1 didn't come out until 1999, so nine years later, for $6000, for a 2.75mp camera. Did that even compete with film? Can you put that on the cover of a magazine at under 3 megapixels? So yeah, it was a safe investment in 1990.

CapitalistCartr 10y ago

"Right now, 1 Megabyte of memory costs about $45 retail. This will not drop by an order of magnitude in the next decade without a breakthrough, or an economical Gallium-Arsenide process to replace Silicon." I love this line. Even in 1990 people didn't believe Moore's Law.

zymhan 10y ago
And yet we still have people who don't think Moore's law will cause us to reach the end of MOSFET at some point.
fanf2 10y ago
1990 was weird for memory prices because they were just recovering from memory shortages and price hikes. See this chart http://www.jcmit.com/mem2015.htm http://www.jcmit.com/mem2015.htm and this newspaper article from the time http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/25/business/shortage-of-chips-is-easing.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/25/business/shortage-of-chips...

8_hours_ago 10y ago

There's a lot of good gems in there: "Right now, 1 Megabyte of memory costs about $45 retail. This will not drop by an order of magnitude in the next decade without a breakthrough, or an economical Gallium-Arsenide process to replace Silicon." "It's much easier to pass a stack of prints among a group of people than to set up a viewing session on the TV." It makes you wonder what new technologies we dismiss today will actually start a revolution. Of course, not everyone was wrong about the future of digital film; this guy was spot on: "In my opinion, the popularity of electronic camera is dependant upon the popularity of computers. If this so call multimedia become a reality, then more people may want electronic cameras."