Epson PhotoPC: The 1995 Digital Camera Experience
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
WACOMalt
Hello! We purchased one of these cameras with the intent of just having fun with it and getting some super retro looking images. Long story short, we don't have an old PC to install the software on, so we've been trying a few other approaches to getting images off of it.
So far, from Windows 10, I've set up a windows 95 VM and tried to get that running and COM ports forwarded (we only have a USB Serial adapter)
that was mostly a failure. The next thing I tried was getting 16 bit applications to run on Windows 10 natively, which surprisingly has got us very very close. We managed to mount and use your Disk images of the software, and installed it using otvdm, a 16bit subsystem for windows. This actually worked great and installed and runs the software just fine. We even get to the point of connecting to the camera, it recognizes the com ports and everything, but connection always fails. I think the USB adapter is working because if I try to access a com port from anything else (like Arduino) it'll fail outright, but connecting to the ports for the camera take a long while and eventually say it couldn't connect.
I know this is a massively roundabout approach, and I should just buy an old PC, but its one of those things where we've got so close and it'd be amazing to make this ancient tech work on modern PCs. So I wondered if you maybe have any idea what could be done to access images from this via Windows 10? Perhaps something in the pin-out of my USB adapter is just wrong for this device? The USB Serial adapter I purchased was the Gearmo USA-FTDI2X which I chose because it seemed to be one of the more fully featured serial adapters out there.
I see the camera communicates using TWAIN, which is supported (with drivers) on many programs, an old scanner communication protocol mostly. Could something be done to pull data that way through another software?
I appreciate any help you can give, and thank you for the video!
reply
Hello! We purchased one of these cameras with the intent of just having fun with it and getting some super retro looking images. Long story short, we don't have an old PC to install the software on, so we've been trying a few other approaches to getting images off of it.
So far, from Windows 10, I've set up a windows 95 VM and tried to get that running and COM ports forwarded (we only have a USB Serial adapter)
that was mostly a failure. The next thing I tried was getting 16 bit applications to run on Windows 10 natively, which surprisingly has got us very very close. We managed to mount and use your Disk images of the software, and installed it using otvdm, a 16bit subsystem for windows. This actually worked great and installed and runs the software just fine. We even get to the point of connecting to the camera, it recognizes the com ports and everything, but connection always fails. I think the USB adapter is working because if I try to access a com port from anything else (like Arduino) it'll fail outright, but connecting to the ports for the camera take a long while and eventually say it couldn't connect.
I know this is a massively roundabout approach, and I should just buy an old PC, but its one of those things where we've got so close and it'd be amazing to make this ancient tech work on modern PCs. So I wondered if you maybe have any idea what could be done to access images from this via Windows 10? Perhaps something in the pin-out of my USB adapter is just wrong for this device? The USB Serial adapter I purchased was the Gearmo USA-FTDI2X which I chose because it seemed to be one of the more fully featured serial adapters out there.
I see the camera communicates using TWAIN, which is supported (with drivers) on many programs, an old scanner communication protocol mostly. Could something be done to pull data that way through another software?
I appreciate any help you can give, and thank you for the video!
reply
CHRISMENENDEZ
I didn't even know digital cameras existed before 1999. I vaguely remember an ad for the Sony Mavica and the Nintendo GameBoy Camera and that's it. My first digital camera was actually a crappy Logitech webcam in 2000 that came with a -new- (because it was brand new, but a slightly older model) HP Pavilion PC I got that year. It took terrible pictures and even worse video, but I was in awe that such a thing was even possible, the -live- feed to the PC was just an amazing sight back then. My proper first digital camera was a Sony Cybershot I got in 2005, and again, I was pretty excited that you could just take pictures and delete them as you wished right from the camera itself because it had a tiny color LCD screen. I literally took pictures of everything, and I still have some of them. After cellphone cameras caught on, the novelty and excitement wore off.
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I didn't even know digital cameras existed before 1999. I vaguely remember an ad for the Sony Mavica and the Nintendo GameBoy Camera and that's it. My first digital camera was actually a crappy Logitech webcam in 2000 that came with a -new- (because it was brand new, but a slightly older model) HP Pavilion PC I got that year. It took terrible pictures and even worse video, but I was in awe that such a thing was even possible, the -live- feed to the PC was just an amazing sight back then. My proper first digital camera was a Sony Cybershot I got in 2005, and again, I was pretty excited that you could just take pictures and delete them as you wished right from the camera itself because it had a tiny color LCD screen. I literally took pictures of everything, and I still have some of them. After cellphone cameras caught on, the novelty and excitement wore off.
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Pumyra
I had a later model of one these from the mid 2000s. From what I can recall, no they really didn't get much better. Mine ran on 2 batteries instead of 4, same resolution, same memory, though it did use SD cards and USB. And had a (really crappy) lcd screen to view photos. From what I remember though you could only use it to view photos you already took. You couldn't use it as a viewfinder. It was an improvement over the one in this video, sure, but it was still a crap camera even for the time. I regretted buying it. Everyone else I knew had really nice cameras and I was stuck wih that POS.
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I had a later model of one these from the mid 2000s. From what I can recall, no they really didn't get much better. Mine ran on 2 batteries instead of 4, same resolution, same memory, though it did use SD cards and USB. And had a (really crappy) lcd screen to view photos. From what I remember though you could only use it to view photos you already took. You couldn't use it as a viewfinder. It was an improvement over the one in this video, sure, but it was still a crap camera even for the time. I regretted buying it. Everyone else I knew had really nice cameras and I was stuck wih that POS.
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Akkordinator
I really hope no one actually bought these. Its cool for this video, but if I now scan images from film i can easily get 10-12Mpix out of them. With a dynamic range that comes close to my DSLR, making them even great for big print outs and so on. And then imagine someone who really took pictures with this thing. Maximum printing size would be around 10cm (4inches) diagonally for acceptable, but not great 200ppi. Not even considering the ridiculous compression artifacts and the high costs.
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I really hope no one actually bought these. Its cool for this video, but if I now scan images from film i can easily get 10-12Mpix out of them. With a dynamic range that comes close to my DSLR, making them even great for big print outs and so on. And then imagine someone who really took pictures with this thing. Maximum printing size would be around 10cm (4inches) diagonally for acceptable, but not great 200ppi. Not even considering the ridiculous compression artifacts and the high costs.
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MonsterMatt095
9: 56 -There's something about its particular noisey, low-res, washed out style that I quite enjoy- Funny you should say that, for the longest time I've thought the same about digicams from the 90s and even early 00s. There's something fun and nostalgic about photographs mimicking that era. Personally Iv'e been using different filter programs and apps lately to achieve the effect, though keeping an eye out for an oldie digital camera.
Love the content, keep it up!
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9: 56 -There's something about its particular noisey, low-res, washed out style that I quite enjoy- Funny you should say that, for the longest time I've thought the same about digicams from the 90s and even early 00s. There's something fun and nostalgic about photographs mimicking that era. Personally Iv'e been using different filter programs and apps lately to achieve the effect, though keeping an eye out for an oldie digital camera.
Love the content, keep it up!
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Ian
Considering the photos aren't trash, people have to consider how extraordinarily convenient this camera was back in the day. With film cameras, you had to buy film, take the shot with the viewfinder which doesn't give you a perfect idea what you're shooting, pay for the film to get developed, come back in a few hours/days then take it home, scan it with a scanner to get a similar result. We take digital cameras for granted nowadays, but this was revolutionary technology.
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Considering the photos aren't trash, people have to consider how extraordinarily convenient this camera was back in the day. With film cameras, you had to buy film, take the shot with the viewfinder which doesn't give you a perfect idea what you're shooting, pay for the film to get developed, come back in a few hours/days then take it home, scan it with a scanner to get a similar result. We take digital cameras for granted nowadays, but this was revolutionary technology.
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Shared
It's fun to learn the current perspective of someone who was 10 when a product came out. It's also amazing you find such complete time capsule products at thrift stores. This probably would have brought decent money on eBay. Just like computers from the same era it's good to have reminders of far we've come. Today a $40 smartphone has a better camera and 4000 times as much flash memory.
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It's fun to learn the current perspective of someone who was 10 when a product came out. It's also amazing you find such complete time capsule products at thrift stores. This probably would have brought decent money on eBay. Just like computers from the same era it's good to have reminders of far we've come. Today a $40 smartphone has a better camera and 4000 times as much flash memory.
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Joseph
I had an Olympus camera that was very similar. The one big difference that made it tolerable was that the big flash memory card could pop out and I could use a USB external card reader to download the pics into my PC. Ended up giving it to a teacher friend for her special needs kids. A camera you just turn on and take pictures is great for them, and they have a lot of fun with it.
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I had an Olympus camera that was very similar. The one big difference that made it tolerable was that the big flash memory card could pop out and I could use a USB external card reader to download the pics into my PC. Ended up giving it to a teacher friend for her special needs kids. A camera you just turn on and take pictures is great for them, and they have a lot of fun with it.
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Mina
I heard of digital cameras in the 90s but would have never been able to afford one, I never even saw one back then. I just realized, its 1995 how do you get the pictures from your computer to print? Back then I'd take film to be developed, I can't imagine too many businesses would take online digital orders. - I do remember Epson had photo paper. I guess you had to print your own.
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I heard of digital cameras in the 90s but would have never been able to afford one, I never even saw one back then. I just realized, its 1995 how do you get the pictures from your computer to print? Back then I'd take film to be developed, I can't imagine too many businesses would take online digital orders. - I do remember Epson had photo paper. I guess you had to print your own.
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Zos
640x480 is no accident. The first consumer digital cameras were born from taking camcorder sensors and adapting them for digital imaging. After these early cameras (mavica, quicktake, etc) proved there was a market, manufacturers began investing in dedicated imaging chips and the megapixel race was on. In just a couple of years 1-2mp was fairly common.
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640x480 is no accident. The first consumer digital cameras were born from taking camcorder sensors and adapting them for digital imaging. After these early cameras (mavica, quicktake, etc) proved there was a market, manufacturers began investing in dedicated imaging chips and the megapixel race was on. In just a couple of years 1-2mp was fairly common.
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