Kodak DC40 (QuickTake's brother)

[H3NRY]

Found a Kodak DC40, which is their version of the QuickTake 100 / 150 camera. It works! However, it's a PITA to get pictures off it to the web. Kodak's PhotoEnhancer software runs under System 7.5, and the camera needs a serial port and a floppy drive, so the camera attaches to my PowerBook 520 to transfer the slides to disk. The software is supposed to be able to save files as TIFF or JPEG, but when I try that, it crashes the Mac and trashes the hard disk. So then the pictures in Kodak's native KDC format get transferred to the OS9 G4 tower, where the PPC version of GraphicConverter can read KDC and write TIFF. The OS X version of GraphicConverter recognizes KDC files, but can't read them. Next, the files get transferred to the Cube running OS 10.4, which can AppleTalk to the OS9 Mac and speak TCP/IP to the OS 10.6 Mini. After bouncing the pictures once more to the Mini, they can finally be put into iPhoto and uploaded to the web. Jeez, I wish Snow Leopard supported AppleTalk!

So, old camera buffs, there are pictures and stuff here:

http://web.me.com/henryspragens/stuff/Slide_Shows/Pages/1st_DigiCam.html

Less "multimedia" version in the PHOTOS section of the website.

 

[mac-man6]

I carried something very close to one of those back in high school as the yearbook editor. Every day it would be in my backpack in case of a good photo opportunity. I remember the custom file format and the kodak software. It's forgivable because of the time period but it would be such a pain now. Maybe you should email Steve Jobs and ask for it's support in iPhoto!

 

[4seasonphoto]

Years ago I batch-converted a bunch of the Quicktake 100 photos to TIFF and burned them onto a CD, figuring they'd be safely archived. Well yes and no. The disk and it's data survived okay, but a lot of the resulting TIFF files seemed to contain no readable data due to I-don't-know-what, so a lot of my earliest digital photos are gone for good. Also had to ruthlessly purge a lot back in the day, because my Duo only had a 40 megabyte hard drive and it was constantly filling up!

Reworked some of those old photos in Aperture 3 awhile back, and that was the best I had ever seen them look

 

[Bunsen]

What software did the Quicktake itself ship with? Is the Kodak camera similar enough to make trying the Quicktake's software worth a shot?

 

[LCGuy]

The QT150 shipped with PhotoFlash for the Mac and PhotoNow for Windows. Unfortunately neither of which are available from Apple

 

[iMac600]

Believe it or not, i've just discovered I have a PhotoNow floppy, still sealed, on the inside jacket of the PhotoNow manual. :lol: Pretty sure I have PhotoFlash for the Mac as well. Could be worth imaging, I think.

 

[Osgeld]

I have a OLD copy of paint shop pro (v6) that claims to open *.kdc files, but nothing to test it with

 

[slomacuser]

you can get the software for QuickTake cameras on Legacy Software Recovery CD