The first cell phone with an integrated digital camera didn’t make its way into the US until 2002. but the camera phone had already been released in Japan in 2001. The name of the phone was the J-SH04 made by Sharp. The camera took pictures at a whopping 0.11 megapixels. The camera was located on the back of the phone and the front of the phone had a large display. Other features of the phone included a 256 STN color display, 500 number phone book, one-touch Web access, and a speaker phone. At the time the J-SH04 sold for $500.
Boy oh boy have times changed. Now it’s not uncommon to find cell phones that have 8 megapixel cameras. The J-SH04 was truly a game changing innovation. I salute the person who came up with the idea to integrate a digital camera into a cell phone. I’m looking forward to the next great integration!
It’s Friday and that means it’s time for another round of Old School Fridays. Today we’ll be looking at the Motorola DynaTAC, othewise known as “the brick”. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was the first mobile phone to receive FCC acceptance in 1983. DynaTAC was actually an abbreviation of Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage. The DynaTAC weighed 28 ounces and was 10 inches high, not including its flexible rubber whip antenna. In addition to the typical 12-key telephone keypad, it had nine additional special keys. The DynaTAC’s display utilized red LEDs, and which was limited in what information could be shown. The battery allowed for a call up to 60 minutes, after which it was necessary to charge the phone up to 10 hours in a trickle charger or 1 hour in a fast charger which was a separate accessory.
I’m sure mainy of you know at least one person that had “the brick”. It would be great to see a comeback of this phone. Imagine people walking around talking on the brick. The only problem is where to put the phone when you’re not using it. I seriously doubt we’ll ever see a return, but you never know!
