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Model 800 Kodak Carousel
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Model 800 Kodak Carousel

Author: 
Carroll Gantz
Designer: 
Harvey, D.M.
Date: 
1964
Model 800 Kodak Carousel

Kodak’s carousel projector was a dramatic innovation that established a new typeform for projectors. Previous projectors used linear slide trays below the lens that lifted slides into position. Kodak engineers D.M. Harvey and W.P. Ewald reversed the process to allow slides to fall by gravity into position from a tray above the lens. Kodak industrial designers Art Crapsey and David Hansen meanwhile worked on sketches and working drawings for this concept. Ewald built a top-loading tray prototype to test the concept in 1956. In 1957, Hansen hit on the concept of a round tray in a sketch, and a patent was granted to him. Kodak industrial designer Dick Olsen carried on the development, and in 1959, final drawings were completed for a prototype and appearance model. The final product, the Model 550, was introduced in 1961, and swept the market. Still, some of its features were extraneous to operation, adding costs. So it was redesigned to make it easier to manufacture and use by Crapsey and Hansen, and the resulting model 800 (illustrated above) was introduced in 1964. This model set the classic typeform. After 1972, later models of the carousel were introduced by Kodak, but with little change in its compact appearance and function. Designers of this era had to prepare portfolios of 35mm slides, and they were used in thousands of client presentations. But in 2004, when digital photography finally killed the 35mm slide market, the last Kodak carousel projector was produced. Many older designers are now converting their lifetime of slides into digital storage through CDs or DVDs

Sources: 
100 Years of Design consists of excerpts from a book by Carroll M. Gantz, FIDSA, entitled, Design Chronicles: Significant Mass-produced Designs of the 20th Century, published August 2005 by Schiffer Publications, Ltd.
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