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Comment by rcarmo | Hacker News Reader

The QuickCam page is also impressive on its own: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickCam

From searching the web, it seems like the original one uses the TI TC255 CCD image sensor (https://www.google.com/search?q=Connectix+QuickCam+%22tc255%...):

https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/93863.pdf

The TC255 is a frame-transfer charge-coupled device (CCD) designed for use in B/W NTSC TV and special-purpose applications where low cost and small size are desired. The image-sensing area of the TC255 is configured in 243 lines with 336 elements in each line.

It's a DIL through-hole package with just 8 pins. The output is analog. I wonder how they implemented the A/D conversion and the frame/line buffering.

It's amazing how breakthroughs in the past now seem trivial. Everything has gotten so much easier/cheaper. A hobbyist can do what took quite a bit of funding back in the 80s/90s.

The frame buffering is a physical feature of the CCD. It actually has twice the number of lines, but half of them are behind a mask so they will never be exposed. When the exposure ends, it rapidly shifts the accumulated electrons from the exposed lines into the area with unexposed lines. From there, they can be read out by the ADC while another exposure is in progress.

And its look is basically the logo used today for webcams, which I hope is a bragging topic for its designers.

When your product becomes the actual graphical icon for some particular class of things, I guess you are totally justified in calling it "iconic."

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