nerdology:

Above is the first digital camera.  It was made by Steve Sasson working for Kodak in 1975. 1975! Using “a lens from a Super 8 camera, a whole stack of ni-cad batteries, a digital to analog converter from a voltmeter, [and] a highly experimental CCD.”  Oh and that cassette tape on the side, thats are how the pictures are stored.

The camera captured a 100-line image onto that cassette-tape, yet even that tiny picture took a mind-numbing 23 seconds to write. Playback was possibly clunkier still, using another tape-player hooked up to a frame-storing devices that interpolated those 100 lines to an NTSC-compatible 400-line image and then showed it on a regular TV-screen.

Though it was built in 1975 and patented in 1978 it stayed hidden from the public until 2001.  It still remains in Steve Sasson’s possession still.

[Wired]