Kodak feature on Rochester TV re: Ektachrome

[Prof_Pixel]

http://13wham.com/news/top-stories/kodak-ektachrome-relaunch-is-job-security-for-rochester-employees

It includes the comment:"
Kodak will sell 10 million rolls of film this year, a far cry from its heyday of a billion rolls and the dawn of digital. Yet its once-core business has turned a key corner.

"Our film volumes have stabilized over the last two months," said Wayne Martin who is the Vice President of Film and Chemicals. "We have actually hired 50 to 60 people."

Eight hundreds people work to manufacture film at Kodak Park. There are hundreds of other support jobs."

 

[Sirius Glass]

Nice to see

 

[keenmaster486]

Those computer systems look like about, oh, I don't know, 1995 vintage.

 

[Roger Cole]

Those computer systems look like about, oh, I don't know, 1995 vintage.

Who cares?

If it does the job it needs to do and they can support it, use whatever works. I don't care if they use abacuses.

 

[kruiwagen]

Who cares?

If it does the job it needs to do and they can support it, use whatever works. I don't are if they use abacuses.

Agreed, as long as the overall process efficiency stays on the same level, why not.

Ontopic: good news again. Seems like Kodak sees a future for film sales. That's great to hear. More important: they created jobs.

 

[bdial]

This is the best news I've heard in a good long while.

As for the computers (did I see a DEC monitor there??), "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

[flavio81]

Those computer systems look like about, oh, I don't know, 1995 vintage.

Those machines aren't there for playing games or surfing the web or watching Netflix.

As long as they keep working, they're good enough.

 

[flavio81]

http://13wham.com/news/top-stories/kodak-ektachrome-relaunch-is-job-security-for-rochester-employees

It includes the comment:"
Kodak will sell 10 million rolls of film this year, a far cry from its heyday of a billion rolls and the dawn of digital. Yet its once-core business has turned a key corner.

"Our film volumes have stabilized over the last two months," said Wayne Martin who is the Vice President of Film and Chemicals. "We have actually hired 50 to 60 people."

Eight hundreds people work to manufacture film at Kodak Park. There are hundreds of other support jobs."

Professor, this is excellent news that makes me really happy. So the reintrouction of E6 film is a sure thing!!

 

[Diapositivo]

The journalist who wrote that must have been born in digital era.
"Ektachrome was also known as slide film."
"Kodak is bringing back two Ektachrome products: 33mm film and Super 8 movie film."

A sign of the times...

 

[bvy]

Who cares?

If it does the job it needs to do and they can support it, use whatever works. I don't care if they use abacuses.

You'll care when they break and quality or production is impacted. Support costs for old hardware and software are high, and companies do put end dates on support contracts. This goes in the "risk" category.

 

[Peter Schrager]

Only 10 million rolls? That's the problem with business models and business in general. That's more than enough to sustain a business and I'm sure it's growing...besides film is only one part of their business now...
Kodak has a worldwide recognizable brand they should play on . And maybe do some social media

 

[RattyMouse]

That's a great video. It's wonderful to see the ebullient looks on the employees. They must have been blown away when the news of this film coming back was announced internally.

 

[Lionel1972]

They do have a nice social media presence now both for still and moving images. They even have a nice podcast I enjoy listening to. Kodak is back on the right track at last!

 

[bvy]

They do have a nice social media presence now both for still and moving images. They even have a nice podcast I enjoy listening to. Kodak is back on the right track at last!

Agree. They're active on Facebook and regularly post company news and stories of general interest to the film community.

 

[keenmaster486]

Those machines aren't there for playing games or surfing the web or watching Netflix.

As long as they keep working, they're good enough.

Oh, I agree! In fact, I applaud it because I'm a retro computer enthusiast
I just think it's kind of funny.

 

[Wallendo]

Who cares?

If it does the job it needs to do and they can support it, use whatever works. I don't care if they use abacuses.

In addition, those old computers likely interface with the other equipment using legacy interfaces. I doubt that old manufacturing equipment has many USB, FireWire, or RJ5 connections.

 

[flavio81]

Oh, I agree! In fact, I applaud it because I'm a retro computer enthusiast
I just think it's kind of funny.

Me too... And thus you'll know that a 1979 computer can still work OK in year 2017. Things that fail are usually peripherals (i.e hard disks) and -rarely- power supplies.

 

[Photo Engineer]

You were looking at VGA monitors, not the computers. Did you notice a large flat screen in the background in one scene? The monitors are replaced as they fail but the computers are quite capable. I assure you.

PE

 

[alanrockwood]

Only 10 million rolls? That's the problem with business models and business in general. That's more than enough to sustain a business and I'm sure it's growing...besides film is only one part of their business now...
Kodak has a worldwide recognizable brand they should play on . And maybe do some social media

Let's think about the numbers. If they are selling 10 million rolls and (optimistically speaking) making $1 profit on each one, they are making $10 million per year. That's not exactly big money in the business world, but hopefully enough to keep them in business.

 

[Roger Cole]

You'll care when they break and quality or production is impacted. Support costs for old hardware and software are high, and companies do put end dates on support contracts. This goes in the "risk" category.

No, I won't.

These are PCs, not old VAX machines or mainframes. I deal with this kind of stuff all the time and it's super-simple in practice. Example - in my job we have to sometimes connect a console cable to a router console port. That needs an RS-232 port on the terminal (computer) but our computers don't have serial ports anymore. But we all have USB to serial port dongles - it's a non issue. Likewise DOS programs generally run fine under Windows, or in DOSbox, or come to that you can pick up an old computer on eBay for pocket change. It's just not really a problem with PCs like it is with old bigger machines.

And in any case, PE has said it's just the monitors that are old, because the software doesn't need any better display.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Gee if they were Macs you would not have as many compatibility issues. So much for the BS that Macs are too expensive.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Unfortunately for your conjectures, these are not PCs. Any PC would be merely a terminal for a much larger process control computer such as a Taylor, Siemens or Westinghouse. The PCs are used for process control in Research but not production.

PE

 

[Sirius Glass]

There is still a difference between real computers and PCs, even Mac are not in the realm of main frame computers.

 

[kb3lms]

There is still a difference between real computers and PCs, even Mac are not in the realm of main frame computers.

Yeah, but nowadays, everything is done with a PC. There are very few REAL computers any longer. Even when it doesn't look like a PC, down at the metal, it's a PC.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Kodak Research owned a $50M IBM mainframe with a matrix processor. It ran some problems overnight. We had it linked to Forte and Irma boards on PCs to use PROFS and to graph results emulating 3278 and 3279 terminals. But for process control we used PCs in the labs and mid sized computers in the plant. However, they were not tiny either.

PE