Bicentenary of the digital image

[Sparrow]

The 200th anniversary of the digital image

Isn’t it hard to believe that just 20 years or so after this 200x120 dpi image of Joseph Jacquard was made around 1806 the main focus of technological development would shift to the slow, grainy and unpredictable chemical process, and the early promise of the digital image be abandoned.

Looking at the 1826 image by Joseph Nicephore Niepce that can only be viewed in a specially darkened room enclosed a gas-filled case it must have taken great courage and foresight to develop the inferior of the two technologies into the advanced equipment we have today. It’s difficult to speculate what wonders we would have; had the choice then been to develop digital in a serious way at the beginning of the 19th century.