When I excoriated the entire photographic industry for not having produced a
truly high-resolution digital SLR, I had completely forgotten about the Kodak
(and several other models). Although I don't consider a 6Mp image to be truly of
silver-level resolution, it is still far superior to the common run of digital
cameras. Perhaps, when the chips get a bit larger and _much_ cheaper, we will
see an "affordable" camera of silver-film quality.
By the way, Kodak started work on electronic and digital imaging systems as
early as 1970. (Kodak and Polaroid were the first companies to introduce 8mm
video in the US.) Even 30 years ago, they could see "the handwriting on the
wall." The big CCD chip in the DCS 560 is a Kodak product. (So why does the
camera cost so much?)
Moore's Law doesn't apply very well to CCD chips, because you cannot make the
cells arbitrarily smaller without degrading the chip's performance. (This is
also true of transistors, but the transistor has to be much, much smaller before
the Fundamental Laws of the Universe start interfering.)
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