The 1988 VIDEO Floppy Disk Camera: Canon Xap Shot RC-250
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN shares it as a fun explanation of analog floppy-disk cameras.
What it is
LGR looks at the 1988 Canon Xap Shot, a still video camera that records photos to a floppy disk as analog NTSC signal rather than digital data.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2018 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends einr · 2018-09 · on “Street View of 1980s New York”
Yes, probably -- before digital cameras, there were still video cameras. They used a CCD to record still video images onto magnetic media such as a video floppy disk. So a lot like a digital camera, but fully analog. These were pretty cutting-edge tech in the mid 80's and would have made a lot of sense for a project like this. [LINK] [LINK] A fun video to learn more about the tech: [this video]
Cites gambiting · 2020-09 · on “A floppy-disk Walkman using a Raspberry Pi”
Similarly, there have been photo cameras that used floppies for image storage, and I'm not talking about sony's Cybershoot cameras which stored photos as actual files - I'm talking cameras which just stored photos as analog signal directly on the floppy, in NTSC format! [this video]
Cites qingcharles · 2025-12 · on “A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera”
It's interesting that you differentiate between analog and digital electronic cameras. My first "digital" camera was one of the Canon Ion ones that use floppy discs but actually record the photos in analog, so technically just an "electronic camera", but was marketed as a "Still Video Camera" (!). You had to use a video capture card to get the images into the PC. [LINK] [this video]