How the First Digital Camera Was Invented at Kodak

In 1975, an engineer at Eastman Kodak named Steven Sasson built a device that captured black-and-white images onto a digital cassette tape. It took 23 seconds to record one image, and the playback system was a modified oscilloscope. Kodak management famously asked him: 'That's cute, but don't tell anyone.' This episode traces how the first digital camera was born inside the very company that would later be disrupted by digital photography — and why the invention stayed hidden for decades. Lucas and Luna unpack the technical specifics: a CCD sensor from Fairchild, a digital-to-analog converter from Motorola, and a shoe-box-sized prototype weighing 8 pounds. They also explore the corporate irony: Kodak spent billions on digital R&D in the 1990s but never committed to cannibalizing its film business. By 2012, the company filed for bankruptcy. The episode ends with a reflective question: What other world-changing inventions are sitting in corporate labs right now, being told not to tell anyone? #DigitalCamera #Kodak #StevenSasson #CCD #FairchildSemiconductor #InventionHistory #TechHistory #CorporateInnovation #Disruption #Photography #Technology #Business #Podcast #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #SiliconValley #Innovation #History Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo