The concept of digitizing images on scanners, and the concept of digitizing video signals, predate the concept of making still pictures by digitizing signals from an array of discrete sensor elements. Eugene F. Lally of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory published the first description of how to produce still photos in a digital domain using a mosaic photosensor.[2] The purpose was to provide onboard navigation information to astronauts during missions to planets. The mosaic array periodically recorded still photos of star and planet locations during transit and when approaching a planet provided additional stadiametric information for orbiting and landing guidance. The concept included camera design elements foreshadowing the first digital camera.
Texas Instruments engineer Willis Adcock designed a filmless camera and applied for a patent in 1972, but it is not known whether it was ever built.[3] The first recorded attempt at building a digital camera was in 1975 by Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak.[4] It used the then-new solid-state CCD image sensor chips developed by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973.[5] The camera weighed 8 pounds (3.6 kg), recorded black and white images to a cassette tape, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels (10,000 pixels), and took 23 seconds to capture its first image in December 1975. The prototype camera was a technical exercise, not intended for production.