How Steve Sasson Invented the Digital Camera

Kodak DC20 was de facto first digital pocket camera 1996. It was Sasson's camera implemented the very moment it was technically and economically feasible.

It was not better than frames from video, but much smaller than Sony Handycam. As a selfie-camera it was quite reasonable: https://photos.app.goo.gl/sbG9uneEHakBMMSu5

The article glosses over the fact that Sasson was not the one to create and use a CCD to capture an image. That was Gil Amelio, Michael Francis Tompsett and George Smith in April 1970, five years earlier. Sasson was the man behind the first commercial digital camera.

I remember running into some Kodak digital camera engineers at a FlashPix[0] conference, last century.

Every single one of them was complaining about how their budget and work was being strangled by the film people.

I knew, at that point, that Kodak was "dead man walking."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlashPix

I'm genuinely curious here: is first mover advantage real? I can think of plenty of examples where the second mouse got the cheese, so to speak (digital cameras being one; search another; electric cars another, etc etc). Where has being the first, as opposed to the cheapest or best, really mattered?

Kodak could have owned digital photography, and Canon could have been Apple.

VW could crush Chevy and Ford if they just tried.

Also James Clark Maxwell.