[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Give Your Apple Vision for Christmas
December 13th, 2010 by Benj Edwards
How your Apple II sees itself.
(click above to see full ad)
This early Apple II video digitizer (the DS-65 Digiselector) took a regular video input and…well, digitized it. The result was a 256×256 pixel greyscale still image that you could manipulate on your Apple II. In an age before consumer digital cameras, this was quite a novel feat of technical wizardry.
It sold for $349.95 in 1979, which is equivalent to $1,054.24 in 2010 dollars. That’s actually not too bad.
Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever owned a video capture card? Tell us about it.
December 13th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I built a video digitizer for the C64 from a magazine article back in ’87 I believe.
I remember that you could barely make out the video image (still).
December 13th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
There was a “clone” of this interface sold here in Brazil in the mid 80s called Set-Bit, have a look at their ad in a brazilian mag
http://www.classicgaming.com.br/Images/Canal3/Novidades/digitalizadora.gif
December 13th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
The image reminds me of those portrait T-shirts that used to be made at carnivals and fairs back in the 80’s.
December 13th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
I remember portrait T-shirts, but I don’t remember them looking like this, Moondog. Were the ones you’re talking about made with computers?
December 13th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
Benj, there was definitely something computer-generated along those lines back then. The one I saw was a digitized photo of my cousins printed on thin wooden slats along with a 12-month calendar; I think it was in faint color, but not sure. (Either that or they gave the calendar-photo two years in a row, doing the second in color?) They wouldn’t have had the resources to create it on their own, so I assume it was from either a novelty catalog or mall kiosk.
The chances of them knowing are next-to-zilch, but I’ll see if I can find similar old products on the web and post if I do.
December 14th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Yes, Benj, the pixelated ones that looked like they were made on a computer. I also recall the digitized pictures on the calendars and pictures put on trucker hats. There’s nothing like professing your true love than getting a couple’s picture surrounded by a heart on a trucker hat.