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Re: film vs digital and Kodak 4050 update

I am planning a trip to Paris soon. I would need to take my Titanium Powerbook and an extra hard drive if I want to shoot digitally, or else put a lot of money into Compact Flash cards. It's easier to just bring back a bunch of film, or FedEx it if I get too big a bag.

I recently purchased from government surplus the very same Kodak 4050 that was used to scan the photos from the U-2 spy planes. It was surplussed from March Air Force Base in southern California. It was interesting to read that it would have a 500 megapixel resolution with the 4x5 negs! The thing about it that I like though is the detail that the superb optics generates. None of the consumer scanners can come close to the detail from one of these monsters.

I still don't have it working, for those of you who have been following this, but I have been making big strides.

It took a few weeks of wrangling, but I finally was put in touch with the supervisor in the Kodak Tech support center in Toronto, Dave Devine, who is a swell guy and put up the software package that came with the 4050 on the Kodak ftp site and let me download it for free. He used to be a tech support engineer on the 4050 and PCD labs in general. He has been instrumental in me getting the service and installation manuals that are the same documentation the Kodak support engineers used. They were here when I returned from a week long photo expedition last night. And also a few parts that I needed that are getting hard to find. He says that there are a "couple of guys in New York" who have gone around and bought up all the old PCD equipment they could find and are starting a PCD junkyard and repair service. If anybody knows who or where those guys are, please let me know. I have been giving my phone number out to a few labs in L.A. as a possible repair tech after Kodak quits.

I got the machine and my old G3 talking to each other and ran all the diagnostics and the 4050 passed the whole battery of about 40 tests. All the motors and lights and filters are working. I got the plug in working in Photoshop, but I am hung at the point of getting the film terms loaded. I think it may be something to do with OS 9.2 so tomorrow, after a nights rest, I am going to try and get the G3 booted in 8.5 and see if that works.

When I get it all going I am going to build a web site for interested people who want access to the software, etc. and I will put up a faq on how to get one up and running. I got this $53,000 model for $500 surplus, so all you interested QTVRers better keep checking online for surplus machines when Kodak quits supporting them on Nov. 17, 2003 and every lab in the country wants somebody to please get over there and take that old behemoth off their hands. Bring a fork lift or two strong friends when you go to pick it up. It weighs about 90 kilos and will not fit in a regular car!

The older models work on a Sun workstation. Those workstations cost $10,000 plus when new. I checked on eBay for one, and the most expensive was $45 and the cheapest one was one cent with no reserve! But Dave says that you practically need to be a UNIX programmer, which some of us were at one time, at least, to make one go with the Sun computers. The Mac software is still pretty ugly too, but I will get it going eventually.

Paul Fretheim
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