Revisiting the Mavica, Sony's 1997 floppy disk digital camera

Sony's Digital Mavica FD was a digital camera that saved pictures directly onto floppy disk: a wonderful convenience in an age when flash cards (and their readers) were expensive and rare. Images were saved at up to 1280x960 (1.2 megapixels!) and "not that bad", and it takes up to 6 seconds to save them to disk. Quality wasn't the point: this gadget captured 40 percent of the consumer digital camera market. Looking back, the Mavica FD was probably a key solvent in the unexpectedly fast transition from analog to digital photography.

Thrifting notes: third-party batteries won't work in some models, the FD75 and especially the FD87 are the best models, but the FD5 is simplest and easiest to just lug around.