This weeks column in PC Magazine is about dead media and dead devices. Here are two cameras Ifound in the closet which I’d like to play with but neither can be used because of proprietary formats and weird data transfer cables that are lost.
The fascinating Agfa 1680 which took a remarkable picture. The Smart media card has a proprietary format I have not been able to crack (yet).
The Olympus D-300L. A camera with Internal memory only. Bad idea. And here’s why:
Lose this weird cable and the camera is useless. And even if you have the cable will the data transfer on XP or Vista?
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John I assume you don’t have a cash flow problem, but all those products you received for review over the years and ebay could finance a nice Villa on the Med for a summer.
I have been through this recently, too. In my case it was a data aquisition card made for the Mac_IIfx. That 8 pin mini-DIN looks a lot like the ADB serial socket used on old G2 Macintoshes – these computers are available for the price of a USB cable. If you managed to rig an ADB to USB serial cable, there is no guarantee that the discovery protocol will identify and capture the camera.
You can buy a very nice 35mm Nikon or even a large format Bronica or Hasselblad camera, second hand, for the price of a digital camera, nowadays.
I have a company-owned Agfa 1280 that looks just like that one. I did get some great photos with it though often they had a gold cast to them for some reason.
Is this the cable you need for the D-300L?
Taylor, I’d be spending all my time working on eBay rather than looking at products and writing commentaries. Items like these I’d just as soon keep for reference or give to a museum eventually. Everything else becomes rather worthless quickly. And much of the stuff has to be returned although I’m often baffled why some companies want anything back at all once the packaging is wrecked and the product used.
sorry john, but that alfa looks like junk… who designed it? it appears to be very awkward to use even if the pics are good. if you can’t afford a new camera, i would happily send you one for the holidays…. =D
John,
Both of those cameras work well with the Apple Newton
(http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/newton-faq-hardware.html#IIB9)
That ought to tell you something!
DAT tapes, old floppies, 12″ reel to reel tapes, DDS-120 in old windows backup format, and who knows what else is lurking in the closet.
What about the media/format used today to store photos? Will there be a system that our grand kids will be able to view them on?
Do you have any recommendations for LONG term storage?
“sorry john, but that alfa looks like junk”
The lens on the camera is probably better than the lens on most
Agfa ePhoto 1680 1.3 Megapixel / 1.9 Megapixel
eBay item # 7562731060
sold for $52.01
I worked with one of those, the olympus, in my Art class in High School (3 years ago). Awful pictures, a webcam might beat that camera. It held no pictures to be worth it, and I dont think it even had an LCD… you had to use a PC…
ouch… just ouch…
It’s amazing that film has been around for so long and is still compatible with many systems. If you had a negative, you oculd easily get a copy of your picture made. Within the last decade we have had so many new technologies come and go and if you lose a cable, you’re hosed.
The Olympus D-300L data cable is that same as an apple serial cable. I can’t remember if it is the printer cable or the modem cable pick one and if it doesnt work, slap a null modem plug on it and that will fix it.
a couple minutes with Google will get you the software
http://www.camera-drivers.com/drivers/121/121379.htm
I gather you’re looking for the cable and perhaps the software that would let you download the pictures from your Agfa digital camera onto your PC.
I have got both the cable and the Agfa Photowise software.
So if you’re still looking, give me a shout on my email address and I’ll send these to you.
I’m beginning to think that the best backup for digital photos is… 35 mm negative. If a company offered bulk transfer of JPG–to–35 mm for, say 5¢, that might be a viable business model.
I have an agfa1280. It has a beautiful lens. I purchased it because it could use an external flash and it had a real lens. It is only a 1.2MP yet the pictures look better than many 3MP cameras. I have noticed that many people who are digital snobs are not very good photographers. I hate it when a Computer magazine reviews a camera (and visa versa). The computer people usually look at the gee whiz featues and totally miss the photographic aspects (color saturation, lens quality, grain, etc).
Long term storage of digital images is a concern. I have negatives that my dad gave me from the 50′s and 60′s. I can easily get images from them. I hope that I can pass on the picture that are being taken today to my children. It would probably be wise to have them transferred to photographic paper (not ink jet). That way my kids (or their kids) can scan them into what ever media is available to them at the time.
John,
We have the Agfa 1680 here at work and we use it every day. The SmartMedia card produces regular .jpg files that we read from a Belkin card reader. Even the back of the box says: “No file conversion – files saved in standard JPEG format” I know the largest card that will work is a 16 meg.
I have some old floppies: the big ones which really are floppy. How can one read these into a current computer?
If an old floppy disk drive were to show up, would it be usable? What could be used for a driver? etc.
Of course this problem will be appearing for the modern floppies, but that won’t be a problem for a year or two.
Anyone ever hear of Bernoulli drives? They were Iomega’s first product circa 1982 – a 10MB removable disk that operated as a hard drive. A cushion of air protected the disk from the r/w heads, thus preventing head crashes.
What really irks me off about dead media is seeing news video tape from the 70′s….
Spy Nixon, Ford or Carter and be amazed that the video (not film of course) from our lifetime is now grainy and colors have faded to a sublime black and white. Thirty years and this is what we have!?
Your point about the kinescope is wildly correct, because it captured the TV of the time on film. Watching it now, and it is fresh and of quality; while the video tapes after that era are disintegrating faster than celluloid ever did.
Will archeologists ever find a digital rosetta stone(s) for all the stuff we are creating? Will it matter if the bits get erased due to magnetic neglect?
Remember the Maxell commercial of the late eighties and early nighties where the robot finds the cassette tape, maxell of course, and is able to play it in what appears decades after it was created.
Uh-huh…Tapes don’t have that lifetime and the magnetics on the iron bits are fading…irony of course…