The SV630 Interface kit was announced in the summer of 1989. Sales/marketing was planning to attend the 4th Photographic Congress, at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport. One of the marketing guys asked if I would be interested in demonstrating the SV630 software & the printer at the Congress. I told him I was going to be on vacation in Maine that week, however, I could drive over to Rockport for the day. It was a good excuse to attend the Congress, without having to do too much actual work.
There was a Mac with a SV6500 printer setup in one of the classroom buildings, where I met Pedro Meyer (on the left in photo) and Ted Orland, who seemed fascinated with what my software and the new printer could do. Pedro had a brand new pro camcorder, the first with a digital frame grabber. The photo above was captured with his camcorder, by Ted, and then sent to the printer. I then uploaded the image from the printer and demonstrated how you could edit and add text to the image on the Mac software, before printing it out on the SV6500 Color Video Printer.
THIS IS MOST LIKELY THE FIRST TOTALLY DIGITAL COLOR PHOTO EVER MADE OUTSIDE OF A LAB.
There were no other color digital cameras available at the time. Logitech did announce a B&W digital camera that year, the first.
While I was at the Congress, I was asked to meet with John Sculley (then CEO of Apple), who was giving the keynote address, and show him some of my prints made on the yet unannounced XL7700 large format color printer. He was blown away by my prints and mentioned what he'd seen during his talk. Sculley's keynote address that day was on how computers and photography were a natural fit.
I'd sat with my colleague, Mark Henry, during Sculley's talk, and afterwards, when we were walking back from the talk, I told him about my idea to have a digital photography training facility here at the Maine Photographic Workshops. A place where we could train customers and our reps on the new digital products. He agreed it was an excellent idea. He'd bring it up to his boss, Ray DeMoulin. Maybe I could swing a job there and return to Maine.
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