alt.hn

8/21/2026 at 1:52:53 PM

Kodak's "pre-invented" lunar orbiter camera; or, the fate of SAMOS readout

 https://invertingvision.com/2026/08/10/kodaks-pre-invented-lunar-orbiter-camera-or-the-fate-of-samos-readout/

by cainxinth

8/22/2026 at 2:52:35 AM

I grew up in Greece, a suburb of Rochester, New York where Kodak Park and its research labs were located. Aliens would have spotted the labs in 1965 as the one place in the northeast still lit up during the great blackout.

Researchers bought nearby for great housing values and short commutes. My high school was typical working class weak except for an exceptional science program, to support the many "faculty brats" like myself. Half my friends had parents working in the research labs. One day in the 1960's I saw my first computer, sized like a ship's bridge where I played a primitive computer game, two dots orbiting a sun.

My Dad devised the "Bayer filter" for recording color in digital cameras. His best friend played a similar role in video. Long before the internet, the deepest facts about the world came home to me as tales told to my Dad by colleagues in the labs.

My Dad's first experience with a loop was punched cards of a different color, put them back in the hopper and make a mark on a blackboard. These stories prepared me for the inevitability of computerizing my branch of mathematics.

Still, reading this account, I'm surprised so much so soon.

by Syzygies

8/23/2026 at 10:02:15 AM

"One day in the 1960's I saw my first computer, sized like a ship's bridge where I played a primitive computer game, two dots orbiting a sun."

I'm guessing by your username that had quite the lasting impact

by awesomeusername

8/21/2026 at 6:41:06 PM

well at least the trillions spent on military contribute meager scraps to genuine science

that "flying spot" and electronic transmission system developed in 1963 is blowing my mind though

nothing mentioned about bitrates at the time, can't be more than 1000bps?

or wait, was it ANALOG? wild

then compare that to the new Roman Telescope 60 years later which will transmit at 500mbps from L2 a million miles away (1.5TB per day)

ha that took me down a rabbit-hole

apparently this tech led to the first fax machine in 1964 which weighed 1000 pounds and took six minutes to transmit a page (effectively 300bps but it was analog)

two years later in 1966 they had it down to a 50 pound machine but still six minutes per page

four years later in 1970 using more technology developed for satellite transmissions they got the pages down to 40 seconds

this kinda historical progress stuff absolutely fascinates me

by ck2

8/22/2026 at 1:19:01 AM

The fax machine was invented in the 1843 with many iterations on the idea prior to 1964.

by kevin_thibedeau

8/21/2026 at 10:21:43 PM

Me too, specially since it let's me understand how something as crazy sounding as Moore's law could be treated as such from the very start given that it's an empirical relationship and not an actual "law"

PD: Moore's law is from 1965, I had seriously thought it was closer to the 80's, not something developed in the 60's, the progress in that era looks straight out of a novel

by SkyEyedGreyWyrm